


Far from Home: Part II

by petyrbaaaeeelish



Series: Far from Home [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Blood and Violence, Detectives, F/M, Family Secrets, Gothic, Horror, Ireland, Murder, Mystery, Secrets, Suspense, Tragic Romance, Vampires, victorian london
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 23:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petyrbaaaeeelish/pseuds/petyrbaaaeeelish
Summary: When Detective Varys dies on the job, Lord Stark takes matters into his own hands and has hired a group of skilled men to track his daughter down. What he doesn't know is the secrets of the men he keeps around him, and the darkest one of all once he lands on the shores of the Irish coast, where his daughter has been hiding all along.





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

A cold billow of wind from the sea blew across the narrow deck and found its way against my face, forcing me to pull up the collar to my jacket in a vain effort to cover my exposed neck. It was the normal way of life on this shanty old ship; crowded with a hoard of Irish men that made my stomach sick. I was a Scotsman, born and bred, and I thought living with the English was bad- the Irish were slowly changing that tune. I turned my back turned against the wind, and pulled out my trusty old pipe from my coat pocket to stick in between my dry lips. I knew it was only a matter of time before one of the guards would tell me to blow it out, so I took a deep inhale as I tilted my head to the left and the right of me to make sure none was coming my way.

It had been a long journey so far, and from what I’ve been hearing it might be some time before we reach the shores of Queenstown, Ireland. The sea had been raging for the better part of; winter had showed its strength and gave us a mighty battle as we traveled along the southern coast of England and through the narrow portion between quiet Wales and rowdy Ireland.

The sun still showed its strength, however, even when the grey clouds foretold the grim weather for the rest of the day. Soon it would be noon, and I would have to sit through another somber feeling luncheon with the Lord of Winterfell. “I will find her,” he repeated daily, always in the same gruff voice before he said his prayers at every meal. It was more of a vow now, a promise to himself than to the rest of us. Still, his solemn oath would be backed up by his small party: his son, Bran; an eccentric foreigner, Jaqen H’gar, and this silent traveller, which is of course, was myself. I saw a guard approaching from afar, and quickly snuffed out the rest of my pipe as I turned my back to him, knowing full well the scent alone would give me away.

 _Can you blame a man for needing a fix?_ The last few months had admittedly seen an increase in my dependency on whiskey and smokes. My wife left me. _Who wouldn’t find some solace in these things?_

 _For an artist,_ I grumbled inwardly, and found a tightening in the bottom of my stomach that wouldn’t leave me anytime soon.

I leaned against the bannister as I let the guard walk past me from behind, and pulled up the front of my collar so he wouldn’t see my face. His peppy stride told me he was an Englishman and I imagined like the Starks, they stood out like a sore thumb. Lord Stark had his own troubles, thus far, and most of them belonged to him being a Lord- a great Lord at that. _But what does it matter when his daughter is gone? By an Irish whoremonger,_ I recalled, _a sneaky little devil who turned his own daughter against him._

The story was out there for all to see, it filled the gossip sections in the daily newspapers. Lady Sansa’s name was debased, an unfortunate story to tell young ladies who did not take care of their prideful virginity- beware of the Irish they would say, or foreigners in general. It was only a matter of time till they turned on the Scots as well, as they had done with the Jews, the French, aye, even the Germans.

 _These are dark times we are living in,_ I thought, the bullet I took to this feeble wing is a grave reminder.

There was some singing come from the inner rooms, echoing past the sturdy wooden walls and reaching to the open deck where I stood. It was a grave song, full of woe and the horrors of the battles that have long gone. The high-pitch pipe that sang along with the deep strumming of the acoustic guitar captured my attention, and though the words were lost to me I caught its meaning.

A shrill of a whistle rang through the air, and then pounding of footsteps down the other end of the deck. I leaned my back against the bannister in alertness and saw a small boy running towards me. “Stop him!” one of the three security guards yelled at me, and not wanting to get myself in trouble as well, I stuck my foot out just in time to clip the small boy and send him sprawling to the ground chest first. The boy was scrambling to his feet when one of the security guards cuffed him at the back of the head, and then pinned him to the ground with his knee in the center of the back.

 _Now is that necessary_ , I thought, after the other two men pinned the jittery young boy to the ground.

“Stay down,” one of the guards yelled out, and to my wonder the boy submitted. “You are under arrest.”

The boy’s body went slack, as the realization of his impending doom came over him.

“What’s your name?”

“Arya,” came out in a small whimper, which made all of the men glance up with a look of disbelief. “Stark.”

“Bloody hell, it’s a girl!” one of the guards screamed out, and pushed his comrades off her to take a better look at the young woman’s face. “You dressed as a boy.”

“So.”

“What the hell were you doing down below? That area is strictly out of bounds.”

“I know.”

“You know?” The guard with short brown hair and eyes uncommonly dark for an Englishman lifted the girl to her feet and settled her right in front of him. “You know,” he repeated, once the girl was leveled to his chest. “But does your father?”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“On the ship.”

“Maybe.”

I took a step forward and exclaimed, “Her father does not know she is here.”

“Who are you?” she asked in accusatory tone, with her dark brown eyes narrowing at me.

“I work for your father.” I turned my head to the three security guards that looked at me with certain scrutiny. “We are heading to Ireland to look for his kidnapped daughter.”

Arya wrestled herself away from the guards to approach me. “I’m going to kill the bastard.”

“That is no way to talk like a lady,” I reprimanded.

“I’m no lady,” she pronounced with defiance.

“You’re a Stark,” I gibed, since I understood her true meaning. “Officers, I think you should take her to her father right away.”

“We have to find out who smuggled you on the boat. It wouldn’t have been possible without help.”

“I did it alone,” she argued back, even when the three men arrested her with sturdy hands.

“We’ve been on this ship for thirty days. There is no way you survived out here alone.”

They have a point, I deliberated, and wondered if Brandon Stark had anything to do with it. The men took the sulking child away from me, ignoring her angry rants as they dragged her to the front end of the ship for further investigation. I thought Ned Stark must have felt like a failed parent, as if something was going wrong with all of them. It was rumoured that Robb Stark rugby season was on hold after a broken collarbone, and then there was the issue with Brandon Stark stepping below his station to perform his instruments publically for a fee, and then the news about the his mentally disturbed son that has been hiding in his house for all these years. The Stark’s reputation was scarred, falling apart, and there was nothing the proud Ned Stark could do about it.

I decided to head back into my rooms and retire for an hour or two while everything blew over, knowing Lord Stark would not accept his daughter with an open hand.

* * *

 "Mormont,” Lord Stark grumbled the moment I stepped into his room. “I heard you ran into my daughter earlier.”

“I did.”

“Hmmmm,” he mumbled under his breath, while settling his dark eyes on me. “She doesn’t like you one bit.”

“I did not want to stand in the way of law,” I explained. “And I did not know it was your daughter.”

“How could you?” he questioned, while he stared at the rest of the men in the room. “Dressed like one of my sons?”

“It would have been easier to sneak on board that way, my Lord.”

“Yes, I am still wondering how she managed to do it. I told her… ordered Arya to stay at home to comfort her mother. And she disobeyed me.”

“She has Rickon,” Bran piped up quietly.

“A boy that is seven years old,” he shot back. “There is no comfort in that.”

“He still believes Sansa is in Bath.”

“Better that way.” Lord Stark scratched the back of his head, drawing out the last of his dark brown curls until it fell at the back of his neck. He looked untamed lately, so disheveled you would hardly expect him to be a Lord.

“What will happen to Arya?” his son asked meekly. “Will they arrest her?”

“She is taken under custody. They know of our situation, but they must perform her Majesty’s duties. She will be arrested, charged, but because she is under age-”

“And has your name,” I countered in a loud voice, knowing the legal system all to well.

“Yes, she will be let go,” the towering man next to me admitted, before he took a seat in front of the tiny wooden desk for us to share our meal. “In the meantime, we continue to plot out our next course. They say we may arrive in Ireland in the next few days.”

“What is there left to plan?” Jaqen inquired, leaving the shadows of the wall to step into the feeble candlelight in the center of the room.

“We have to take into account Arya’s presence.”

“Could we not…” Bran paused, and blinked nervously at his father. “… take her with us?”

“And put her in harm’s way?”

“Is she not safer with us?”

“That’s debatable.” He raised his head in his son’s direction and barked out, “You don’t have anything to do with this, do you?”

“No.”

“Someone had to help her.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Hmph,” he grunted, and shot his penetrating eyes in my direction. “Mormont?”

“The first time I laid eyes on your daughter was this morning,” I told him in truth. “I see no advantage in bring her along. She is a woman-”

“- and a child,” her father continued. “Whether she wants to admit it or not.” He looked down at the table where a plate full of crackers and bright red apples were arranged for us to eat. “She is thirteen.”

“Too young to be out traveling alone.”

“Unchaperoned,” he croaked, before he cleared his throat. “Jaqen, you are quiet.”

“I am listening.”

“I employed you because you are skilled with armoury and horseback. You say you can hunt, fight, and kill… if I require it.”

“I will.”

“What advantage is there to bringing my daughter with us?”

“She can act as a spy,” he suggested. “Gather information, that we as grown men could not.”

“My daughter as a spy?”

“She is small,” he entreated. “And if she wishes to dress as a boy, then we can have her pass into even more places.”

“You really thought this out, haven’t you?”

“No.”

Lord Stark chuckled under his breath, and shook his head with some amusement. “And why should I make her a spy? Tell me.”

“You want to find out about Petyr Baelish’s whereabouts,” he told him with a suspicious look about him. “She could help.”

“Arya is closest to Sansa,” Bran added with confidence. “If anyone could bring her back it would be her.”

“If we wanted someone close we should have brought Margaery Tyrell.”

“That would be impossible.”

Ned grunted under his breath, before he picked up a knife and drove it through the center of the apple. “She is going back and you will accompany her.”

“Me?” Bran complained with a look of sorrow. “I want to help you.”

“You have your responsibilities, just as I. You will take the next ship back to London.”

“But father!”

“My mind is made up!” I glanced at Jaqen H’gar and noticed how displeased he looked, before he used his hand to partially cover his face. _There is a man with ambitions of his own_ , I thought, and stared at him long and hard enough to get the attention of the Lord of Winterfell. “If you have something to say, out with it?”

“I have nothing to say,” I mumbled, after I let my eyes stray away from the mysterious foreign man. “I believe you are in the right. This is no place for a little girl.”

“Then sit and eat,” he commanded of me. “We have food, so why not eat it?”

I pulled out a chair next to the imposing man and nodded my head at him, letting him know he could begin his ritual prayers. My eyes were half closed while the man rambled on, and I noticed how frequent Jaqen H’gar looked at the door, as if he was awaiting something. Once the prayers were done, he reluctantly took a seat next to his master.

“You never join us with prayers,” Lord Stark pointed out, after he took a few large bites into his sandwich.

“I do not worship your god.”

“My god is the only god.”

“There are many gods from many places,” he stated. “How do we know which one is the right one?”

“I just know.”

“I come from Russia,” he noted, with a quick glance in my direction. “They worship the same god as you there- still there is no peace between the two countries.”

“There is.”

“False peace,” he shot back. “Like false promises.”

“The relationship between the Crown and Russia have never been easy,” Bran interrupted. “But if we worship the same god, why do you look so uncomfortable?”

“I do not worship the god of my country,” he observed in a strong foreign accent. “I come from a long line of gypsy's”

“It’s a wonder how you managed to cross the border to this country,” Lord Stark drawled out with an arrogance muddled with a sense of disdain.

“Father,” Bran chided, but earned only a look of silence for his son's outburst.

Jaqen lifted his knife in front of his chest, and spun it effortlessly between his fingers with tightened lips. “I do not need you to defend me,” he drawled out without barely moving his lips. “We are used to the filth of this country,” he explained, which made his accent add even more insult to his statement. “You think you are better than us, but we feel differently. You are so quick to suck the cocks of monarchy, but it is us who roam free.”

“Another word and I will have your head,” Lord Stark warned.

“Will it be you who finds your daughter? To bring her back?”

“It will be.”

“Then it is clear you don’t need us.”

The Lord of Winterfell looked caught in the making of his own web as the silence descended over the table.

“I worship the Many Faced God,” Jaqen stated with an open expression. “They tell of stories of men… who do not feed on food like you and I. They feed on the blood of men.”

“That is complete nonsense,” Lord Stark yelled out.

“They come out at night, but if it is grey and foggy like it is today, well, they are free to roam the earth like you and I.”

“I have heard of those folk tales,” Bran breathed. “They come from your country.”

“And many others,” Jaqen noted. “Any that care to listen! The problem is you Protestant, ultra conservative men like yourselves do not believe these stories, and that allows men like Petyr Baelish to survive.”

“You are saying,” I piped up for the first time. “Baelish feed off the blood of men?”

“That is exactly what I am saying,” he breathed.

“And your proof?”

“The way men and women die around him. I have seen the files, the ones the police wish to keep hidden. I saw the dead body of Varys as well, and it told me all that I needed to know.”

“You’re mad!” Lord Stark quelled out with anger. “What the devil was I thinking when I hired you?”

“It was not you who hired me,” he said in a flat tone of voice. “It was the _gods_. I will help you find your daughter, but it may come at a price.”

Bran leaned forward in the table, till his chest rested on the edge of the desk. “What price?”

“A life.”


	2. Hanging by a Thread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets are coming out, and the Stark family is hanging by a lethal thread.

**Bran**

We were stationed outside at Queenstown seaport in the pouring rain, caught up in a long line that was still awaiting their luggage and parcels for their long journey across Ireland. Father had left us to go to the security sector, where Arya was still stationed as the Ireland police investigated the matter further. She had broken the law, smuggled her way into the ship and they wanted to know how she was able to do it. Arya was silent on her end, but how long could she cope before she inevitably brakes down to reveal the truth?

The line was moving slow, and the three of us stood there in silence, too exhausted from our long journey to even give thanks that we reached the docking bay. Curious of how long the line was behind me I looked back and saw the most beautiful woman clothed in black with a dark hood over her head, still the startling colour of aqua blue and seaweed green claimed so much of my attention that Mormont had to bump me on the shoulder to get my attention. “You alright, lad?”

“I’m fine.”

Mormont looked over his shoulder, but whatever was claiming attention was lost to him. “I’m getting sick and tired of waiting,” he mumbled over his shoulder, before he looked down at me. “Almost wish I was with your father.”

“Do you?”

“Better than standing in the rain.”

“You should have brought an umbrella.”

“Yes, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

 _You weren’t thinking at all,_ I thought. _Neither was I._ A long sigh escaped me as I brushed off a pool of water off the top of my head, fearful of a cold that would soon come over me from the sea breeze that constantly blew at my right.

“Did you really bring an instrument?” Mormont asked with a hint of mockery.

“I bring my violin with me everywhere.”

“I never heard you playing it for the past few weeks.”

“Father doesn’t like the sound.”

“But you brought it anyways.”

“If any opportunity arises… I will take it. I won’t be on my father’s hip forever.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Still a boy.”

 _If that is what you want to think._ I looked over my shoulder again to catch the glimpse of the young woman, but she was lost among the crowd, so I could not spot her again. _I don’t feel like a boy- not anymore._

“The line is moving finally,” Mormont pointed out, and looked a few feet ahead of us were a shelter from the rain could be seen. “Once we get our things we must grab a carriage and head to the lodging.”

“And inquire about the whereabouts of Petyr Baelish,” Jaqen piped up. “I am interested where a man like him would be staying.” Jaqen pulled up his hood higher over his head, but I caught a glimpse of him mumbling something under his breath. _Was it a prayer? A promise? A curse? Who knows what goes on in the mind of Jaqen H’gar, but I did not want to stay too long in his presence._ He made the hairs at the back of my head stand up when he stared at me too long, so dark and penetrating it was if he was looking into my soul.

He had approached us at Varys funeral to offer his services, and my father filled with grief eagerly accepted it. I only wish he had thought of the matter more clearly, for this man seemed to have different alternatives for accompanying us on our journey. He was more interested in Petyr Baelish than the recovery of my sister and I was starting to wonder why that was the case.

“I must post a letter to Detective Wales,” Mormont voiced aloud. “Remind me once we are in town.”

“I will.”

“He wants to know everything. Wales will never forgive himself for Varys’ death.”

“He was a good man.”

“He was,” Mormont agreed in a gruff tone of voice. “Good men don’t last long in this business I find. I was lucky to get out when I could.”

“You worked for Scotland Yard.”

“Aye, for many years. But I got on the wrong side, so I had to leave.”

 _The wrong side of what,_ I wondered, but the way his eyebrows lowered over his eyes told me to hold my tongue.

“No wonder Dany left me.” Mormont looked away from us, and directed his gaze to the light grey sea that raged behind us.

We entered the place of shelter, and were pleased to know the entrance to the luggage area had only twenty people ahead of us. “You know…” I piped up, and turned to the tall man next to me. “I’m not worried about finding Sansa. Its more… what will happen when we find her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Father will lose his temper, and then what? Why would she want to come back?”

“It could be the opposite! She might regret her decision and glad that her family has come to rescue her.”

“What if she doesn’t need rescuing?”

Jaqen leaned forward and let his chest rest on the edge of my shoulder blade as he uttered, “She will not come back to London.”

“You- you,” Mormont stammered out with annoyance. “Seem so certain about it.”

“I am.” He let his eyes dart between the two of us with small amusement. “She belongs to _him._ ”

“She belongs with her family.”

“This is coming from the man who does not have one.”

Mormont grunted at him with displeasure. “All the more reason why I value one.”

“This will not atone for your sins.”

“I don’t think you have the right to-”

“- gentlemen, please,” I cut in. “Now, is not the time nor place to argue.”

“He thinks he knows everything.”

“Maybe he does,” I said with a hint of sarcasm. “We will have our luggage in a minute and then Jaqen you find us a carriage. Mormont comes with me, we have to find my father… and Arya.”

“He still wants you to take Arya home, does he?”

“Yes,” I grumbled. _My father is as stubborn as a…_

“You will find,” Jaqen uttered out in a smooth voice, which disturbed my half-formed thoughts. “Your father’s will is not always set in stone.”

“Do you know my father?” I laughed. “It is his way or-”

“Not always,” Jaqen interrupted. “You will see.”

I turned my whole body in his direction, but the heavy flap to his hood covered most of his visage. _Is that a smile on his face,_ I wondered, and felt the strongest desire to turn away from him.

One of the seaport workers called us over, and we quickly gathered our things before we departed for good. I took one last look into the crowd to see if I could spot that beautiful young lady but she was lost to me. _Not like anything would have happened anyways,_ I deliberated, and hefted a heavy bag over my shoulder’s belonging to my father before I trudged out into the rain again.

* * *

“The horse likes you,” the carriage rider noted, as Jaqen bony long fingers brushed the horses brow and continued its way down till he reached its snout. The horse brushed hot air onto the foreign man, opening its jaw to let out a cloud of grey smoke into the cold air around us. “You around horses much.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never seen it behave this way before. Usually a wild thing, but with you its tamed.”

 _Maybe he bewitched it,_ I thought, though I did not know where that thought came from.

My father had his hold on Arya’s shoulder as he marched her to our carriage, his strong grimace told me he was angrier than ever. “Who the devil tells me I must take care of my daughter?” he shouted out. “Bran! Take your sister’s things,” he barked out, and threw a small sack into my chest, which forced me to catch it last minute- I dropped it. I was never really athletically inclined anyways. “And from now on, you are taking care of her!”

“I don’t understand.”

“She is to stay with me. They won’t let her go back to London unaccompanied by a ‘responsible guardian.’” He puckered his lips as he pushed his daughter ahead of him. “If we were back home I’d have them hanged.”

Arya shuffled her boots into the muddy earth, sending pools of water everywhere as she approached me. She walked straight past me and stood at Jaqen’s side in silence, only giving him a look before she climbed into the carriage.

“I’m old enough to take her.”

“I know, but she has already gotten into trouble once. It’s either I take her or she doesn’t go at all. So, she comes with us.”

“Is that wise?” I asked aloud, and instantly regretted it. “It is better she is with us, for Sansa’s sake.”

“I don’t know what has gotten into my children,” he sighed, and rubbed his glove hand over the side of his face wearily. He hadn’t shaved for weeks, and the awkward brown patches made him look older and worn out. “You turned out alright,” he muttered, while his sad looking eyes fell on me.

“I have no intention of running away,” I assured him in a quiet voice, and then lent a hand for him to take before he climbed into the carriage as well. I turned to the other two silent men, noticing their uneasiness before I stepped into the cramped carriage.

“Arya?” I asked, as I moved down the leather seat until I was sitting right beside her. “Why did you come?”

She ignored my question and chose to look out the window instead, watching the rain pour outside to match her own level of destitution. I turned to my father to see he was staring at his daughter with disappointment, shaking his head silently before he pulled off his set of gloves. Mormont stepped into the carriage, bowing his head until he was seated next to my father.

“The driver says we don’t have far to go,” he noted with merriment. “I will be happy to have a warm fire and hot cup of coffee.”

“I am ready for my bed,” I told him, as I unbuttoned my jacket to let some air go down my slightly damp shirt.

Jaqen stepped into the carriage with his hood still over his head, and made neither a word or sound as he took his spot next to me. I noticed how he was the only one that carried his luggage with him, a small handbag that had tears in it, sewn up with a soft pink thread that gave his bag extra character. It was soaked from the rain but he placed it on his lap anyways, holding it firmly with both of his hands as if it was the most important valuable he had. He caught me staring at him, and pressed the bag to his chest further.

“Finally!” My father blurted out, once the carriage shifted in the mud and began to move forward. “Just one step closer to my girl.”

 _One of many,_ I thought, since we still did not know the exact location of her whereabouts. We had a lead on one of the several business establishments that Littlefinger owned: a gaming house, not to far from the seaport that we had landed. We planned to stop at a local lodging first, before we made inquiries on the exact location of Petyr Baelish.

“Father,” I called out, and waited for him to look at me. “Thank you for letting me come.”

“You are my son,” he answered me with a depth of feeling. “Of course you could come.”

“Thank you anyways.”

Arya made a sound, as if she was snickering under her breath. She covered her mouth quickly, and then forced her face to turn to the window once again.

“We will have a talk, Arya,” her father warned in that particular voice that condemned you to disciplinary action. “Once we are alone.”

She mumbled something under her breath, which my father simply ignore her.

The carriage ride was somewhat smooth, rolling down the cobbled muddy streets of this quaint town that had very few people walk among it. The rain continued to pour, clouds dark as ever told us it was far from over. The scenery was peaceful though, calming enough to lull me to sleep, and sleep I did for some time until I had my sister awaken me sometime later.

“Get up,” she barked, with a strong nudge on my shoulder that sent me crashing into Jaqen.

I shook my head from sleep as I mumbled a barely articulate apology, and blinked a few more times to find the carriage door wide open. The driver gave us a large grin, urging us to depart with frequent pointing to the lodging in front of us. “We h’re,” he exclaimed, while he shook the large umbrella over his head in good humour.

“Thank God,” my father sighed, and motioned his small party to leave the carriage. Jaqen flew out as fast as lightening, and Mormont still awakening from his own sleep sluggishly climbed down the carriage. I buttoned up my coat and stepped into the rain with some reluctance, hiding underneath the driver’s umbrella for unreasonable amount of time until the rest of my family exited the carriage as well. Mormont already had our luggage in hand, helpful enough to hand to each of us before he signaled he had everything. Jaqen silent as the night, led us to the lodging, making sure to hide in the shadows the minute we stepped into the dimly lit room.

My father, always the one in command expedited the process of us attaining our room, and then ordered us to meet downstairs in a few hours for dinner. “We will begin our search then,” he told us, and then took the stairs without another look back at his two assistance's.

Mormont pulled on my arm and pulled me aside, knowing fully well that Jaqen was watching. “I’m going to start the search now,” he whispered low enough for only I to hear. “I noticed there is a tavern next to this place, so I thought-”

“- do you want me to come?”

“No, you’re English,” he wheezed out painfully. “They won’t trust you.”

“But you’re Scottish,” I pointed out.

“Aye, but its better than you Londoners,” he laughed. “Or Russian.”

“Yes, I am happy he hasn’t spoken in public,” I observed, while darting my eyes at him. Jaqen seemed reluctant to mount the stairs, but he did once he noticed his presence was not wanted. “Do you think he can cover his accent somehow?”

“I think he can do a lot of things,” Mormont grievously said. “I don’t trust him.”

“Neither do I, but what can we do? Father wants him!”

“Your father is the most proud man I know. What does he want with him?”

“What does Jaqen H’ghar want with us?” I countered. “Being around him is like being near a ghost.”

Mormont scratched his ginger coloured beard, having the strawberry red tint that was expected from a Scotsman. “One question at a time,” he reminded me. “I will have a drink at the tavern and tell you if I find anything, alright?”

“Alright.”

“Go up to your father, before he comes looking for you,” he reprimanded with a sly little grin, and off he went out the same door we had just come through only minutes earlier.

I unbuttoned the whole of my jacket before I stepped upstairs, and prepared myself for the argument my sister and father were inevitably having by now. _None of this would have happened if Sansa didn’t run away,_ I noted, _and felt that same sense of resentment I had felt so many times before._

* * *

“Tell me,” my father grumbled with his hands over his eyes in exhaustion. He was seated at table next to the candlelight that casted a fiery red shade across his crumbled form. “ _Who_ helped you?”

“I already told you,” his daughter stated in an empty voice. “No one.”

“Do you want me to beat it out of you?” He growled, now that his hands slid away from his face.

“I am telling you the truth.”

“You will not eat until you tell me, is that understood.”

“I am telling you-”

“This conversation is finished,” he declared, and got up from his seat to go to the other end of the room.

I remained in my seat with arms crossed as I stared my sister down with annoyance. She was hiding something, it was clear by her guilty demeanor, and the way her eyes never truly fell on my father and I. “You’re a terrible liar,” I pointed out, after she let her shoulders fall in defeat. “We know someone helped you.”

“He said he was no one,” she hushed, and shrugged her shoulders to show that was all she had to say. “I was just happy he smuggled me aboard.”

“What did he look like?”

“Not too tall,” she deliberated. “I couldn’t really see him… it was hard.”

“Why?”

“He had himself covered up.”

“What did he sound like?”

“Deep voice… a man’s.”

“He could have hurt you,” I moaned, as I rubbed my eyes wearily with the back of my hand. “Kidnapped you, raped-”

“That’s enough!” my father called out from the other end of the room. “Bran, enough.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” Arya stated with feeling. “I trusted him.”

“He gave you his word.”

“He gave me this,” she told us, and pulled out a copper coin from the bottom of her coat pocket before she dropped it on the table. It spun around in circles, and then fell flat on the table with a women’s face drawn across it. It looked more like a skull than anything else. “He told me its valuable.”

“How much?” my father inquired, as he strode over the table for a better look.

“Worth more than my life.”

“Is that what he said?”

“Yes.”

“You stupid child,” he grumbled. “A mere piece of foreign money and you put your life in danger. Have you not learned from your sister’s stupidity! Never trust a man- not unless its Bran and I.” He picked up the coin to feel its weight, and let it sit in the center of his hand as he stared at it. “And don’t be like your sister and fall in love.”

“I’m not in love.”

“Good.”

He pocketed the coin somewhere in his trouser pocket, and then motioned us to go away from him to return to our inner chambers. “Change and get ready for dinner,” he ordered, and with that he took his leave to walk out of the front door of our lodgings.

“I’m not stupid,” Arya complained. She threw her small sack across our room, and stomped her feet madly on the floor. “I want to find Sansa too!”

“But that’s not the way to do it.”

“You get to go because you’re a boy.”

“I’m older.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” she sulked. Arya stormed away from to retrieve her small sack, and tore it open quickly to pull out some dry clothes.

“You belong at home,” I reasoned. “What will our mother think when she finds out you are gone as well?”

“I left a note.”

“Heaven forbid she doesn’t lose her mind because of you.”

“She has her brother to take care of her, and those bloody sermons he keeps lecturing to us.”

I pulled out my clothes as well, and threw it on my bed in front of me. “That is only because our family is falling apart.”

“Sansa is stupid!” she cried out angrily. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” She threw the sack across the floor this time, letting it bang against the partially closed door that we stepped through earlier.

“We all make mistakes, Arya,” I scolded with a disgruntled expression. “You must learn to forgive her.”

“You sound like our uncle,” she laughed, after she took off her heavy winter coat. “I don’t forgive.”

“That is not our way.”

“It’s my way.”

“Arya.”

“Bran,” she shot back, and smirked at me with a menacing look. “I’m going to change.”

“Why are you going through that door?” I asked with some hesitation. “That’s the living room.”

“I know, so you won’t see me.”

“Use the bathroom, and I will change out here.”

“I like the open space,” she said as an excuse, and quickly fled out the door with a change of clothes in hand.

“There is something wrong with my sister,” I mumbled, and decided to change here and now before she walked back into the room again.

Hardly a minute passed before I heard the front door open, and shut loudly with a chink of a lock. Arya had left, and gods know where she went sneaking off too. I only knew I would take the blame for her misbehaviour. “What did I do to deserve this?” I asked aloud, and flung on a heavy wool sweater before I sprinted out of my room and through the front door as well. The hallway was completely empty, so I strode over to the room across from us where I knew Mormont was stationed. I knocked on the door and received no reply, so I went to the door on the left to see if Jaqen knew her whereabouts.

He opened the door with his shirt fully open, showing a deep scar that slashed the left side of his chest. His skin was wet, as if he came straight out of a bath, and the half damp towel in his free hand helped me come to a further conclusion. “Have you seen Arya?” I asked, ignoring the way he looked displeased that I was bothering him.

“No.”

“She just left my room.”

“I said no.”

“What about my father?”

“I have been in my bath the whole time.”

“If you know where they are, will you please tell me,” I said out of desperation, and quickly sprinted down the hallway to make my way downstairs. After I jumped the second staircase I turned the corner and bumped into Mormont’s chest.

“Blast it,” he cursed, and grabbed a hold of the handrail before he tumbled backwards. “You nearly killed me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where are you running too?”

“Arya just left.”

“To go where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Search for your sister?” he suggested. “But she will find he is nowhere near Queenstown. We got a long way to go before we get there.”

“Where?”

“His home,” he said with a sly little smile, and pulled out his pipe with a silent promise that he would share more. “Come,” he entreated, and led the way up the stairs to presumably go back into his room.


	3. Outgrown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya goes to the one person she trusts, and finds he is the only that doesn't see her as a child.

**Arya**

 “Are they gone?” I whispered and crawled out from under his desk in the corner of the room. I pushed my long bangs back, squinting slightly in the candlelight to catch sight of Jaqen H’gar. There was silence on his end, so I went up off my knees and quietly strode towards the front door. He had his back towards me, still wiping away the last of the water that was rolling down the front of his chest; already the back of his dress shirt was soaking wet and sticking to his skin.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“I wanted to see you.”

He continued to wipe off the water, and once satisfied threw it over the back of his neck and down his shoulders. He turned to me while he was brushing his long hair back with his ringed fingers, all four of them dazzling in the candlelight like the small hoop earring in his right ear.

 “Should I go back?”

 “Yes.”

“Bran might see me.”

 He took something out of his pajama pocket and used the small string to tie his hair back. He looked even more foreign than usual, but I had often found it the most alluring quality about him. I was like a firefly attracted to his darkness, and no matter how much I tried he kept pulling me in.

 “I want you to be quiet,” he ordered with his hand in the air for silence. He squinted his eyes, and then shut them close to hear the noises coming from around the tiny lodging. He opened his eyes, and directed me to follow him, ushering me into his bathroom before he closed and locked the door behind him. He sat on the floor and motioned me to do the same, and only then did he address me openly.

 “What did you tell them?”

 “Who?”

“The guards on the boat.”

“That someone helped me, but I didn’t know who it was. I described the man but gave no important details.”

“What did you say?”

“He sounded like an Englishman, medium height, perhaps middle-aged. I gave him money to help me go on the boat, and it was stolen from my father.”

“And what did your father say?”

“He collaborated with me… anything to keep me away from being charged further.”

“But you are not free?”

“No, there will be more questions,” I groaned. “But they let us go for now. I told them that the man referred to himself as ‘No One.’”

“They will not understand that meaning,” He said with a sigh of relief. “And the coin, where did you put it?”

“Father has it.”

He sucked in his cheeks but said nothing.

“He will keep it safe.”

“There is a price for that coin.”

“I will do whatever you say,” I promised. “You took me this far, even when you didn’t have too.”

He rose to his feet and went over to the washing bowl to splash water across his face. He took a spare towel and rubbed it harshly across his visage, and then looked at the looking glass as if he wanted to interrupt its meaning. “He does not know I met you at the party, then.”

“No.”

“That is good.”

“You will help me get my sister back, won’t you?”

“But of course.”

“You said you will teach me how to fight.”

“You cannot fight a demon,” he said in a smooth voice, letting his accent tremble at the back of his throat.

“Petyr isn’t a demon.”

Jaqen sucked in his cheeks again, darting his eyes at me before he stared at the looking glass before him. He closed his eyes suddenly and let out a low breath from his mouth as though he was in a state of mediation.

“Jaqen?” I asked and stood to my feet to find myself leveled to his chest. The black scar caught my eye, and I reached forward to touch it. I let my hand hover just over it, wondering what kind of weapon could leave such a ghastly mark. “You are not in love with me, are you?”

“No.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

He opened his eyes, and let it fall away from me. He wanted to remain silent, it was painfully obvious.

He was like that the first time I met him; he stood in the shadows of Lady Tyrell’s party, lost among the crowd of people lingering around the horses stable to take an evening smoke. He stood out from the crowd I remembered, dressed in poorly rumbled clothes with a wide brimmed hat over his head. His long hair was the first thing I noticed, and the way his black eyes glistened in the pale moonlight as he watched me sneaking around the crowd. He approached me from behind, tapping me on the shoulder before he remarked on the horse’s we were both admiring. I felt at peace with him, the first I had experienced before with a stranger. _Is that how Sansa felt around Petyr,_ I wondered, _why she was so quick to run away?_

Jaqen was like a shadow that never truly left my side. He would visit me out in public spaces, but no one took notice of our quick engagements- a word or two here and there, a promise that we would meet again. It was strange, odd really, the relationship we had. He would tell stories of his homeland, of the memories long gone. He would speak of my sister too, expressing some regret that it should be her that was taken. He seemed to know something about Littlefinger, but whatever it was he kept close to his chest.

I let my hand fall over his chest now, letting my hand smooth down the rough grooves of his scar with silent wonder. He watched me carefully, sizing me up to see what I would do next. I wasn’t exactly sure, so I let my finger slide all the way down to the bottom of his abdomen before I pulled my hand away.

“You should go back to your room,” he told me. “I will find you when I am ready.”

“You are angry at me.”

“What do you think will happen if your father finds you here?”

“He would kill you.”

“I would have to kill him,” he threatened with a look of resolution. “Be gone.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, and took a step backwards so he could unlock the door. He took a hold of my arm and led me across his dark room, and I found my heart racing by the simplest touch.

“Its safe,” Jaqen concluded after he had opened the door, and with a quick nod of his head he allowed me to pass through his threshold. I looked back, wanting to see him one last time, and I found his dark eyes deliberating something about me before he forced the door to close between us.

I tip-toed to the door and unlocked it quietly before I stepped into my own room. I could tell it was empty, and I let out a sigh of relief before I walked around it in silent contemplation. The curtains were shut, so I opened it and peaked out the narrow opening to see anything of interest. _More rain,_ I thought wearily, and then wondered where my father had gone.

 _Bran is probably looking for me,_ I deliberated, and sunk myself into the hard chair with my feet swinging upward to land on top of the desk. _I am no lady,_ I told myself, and snuck my hand inside of my pocket to find the coin no longer there. I should have never given it to father. I felt like a part of me was missing now, a token of Jaqen H’ghar that was no longer there.

 _He was angry too,_ I remembered, and feared his anger more than anyone else.

I felt restless already, wanting to leave even though I stepped through the door not even a minute ago. I felt that urging again, but I knew if I knocked on Jaqen’s door for the second time he would not open it.

I rubbed my hands together, feverish from the cold surrounding this room. I decided to find something warmer to wear, realizing I had so thin of clothes I would probably catch a cold. When I walked past the looking glass I noticed how I looked like a boy, and wondered for the first time if there was anything I could do to change that. It was odd, the way I brushed my hair back to reveal the whole of my face; seeing this young girl with so serious an expression that I looked ten years older.

I let my bangs fall back in place, so dark it covered nearly half of my visage. I felt like Jaqen, almost hidden from the rest of the world. Perhaps, that is the reason I felt we were so alike. For weeks he was the only man I saw at the first break of dawn and the end of the day, always with enough food to sustain me over that long journey. He would exchange no more than a sentence in most cases, it was too risky for him to be below deck for so long. I was hidden in a luggage compartment, lying down back first with enough holes to give me oxygen and the occasional sunlight. I had time to walk around, of curious, when I knew none of the sailors onboard the ship was around. It was lonely, but I had grown accustomed to it, and found the long periods of solitude comforting. Then again, there was something about Jaqen that made the never-ending silence a little better. He was cold and aloof, but I knew he care for me in his own way. One time, when he knew no one would be about, so he let me walk across the deck in the middle of the night, letting me feel the sea air on my face for the first time. Jaqen never looked at the sea like me, instead he only focused on my face. I remember I felt nervous for the first time, so timid that I avoided his eyes at all cost. He never looked at me that same way again, but it seemed to be imprinted in my memory forever.

The lock on the front door chinked loudly, and soon my brother walked in with a certain level of distraction. “Oh, you’re here?” he realized, and crossed his arms at me to show he was not pleased at my slippery escape earlier. “Where did you go?”

“For a walk.”

“Where?”

“Outside.”

“Without a coat.”

“I don’t need a coat.”

“You do when its raining.”

I rolled my eyes at him and looked away to hide my sheepish smile. I really am a terrible liar.

“Where did you go, Arya?”

“I might ask the same from you,” I pointed out, after he took a seat opposite me. He pushed my feet off the table and made sure the candle was positioned in the center of the round table before he made any eye contact with me.

“Mormont thinks he knows where Littlefinger is.”

“Already?”

“Apparently, he is known far and wide, but for a very good reason.”

“Oh, like what?”

“He made a risky gamble with one of the Gentry up north, and, well…” Bran scratched the back of his head uneasily. “He won everything. His house, his lands, his servants, and now he calls himself a Lord.”

“Sansa, is with a Lord then?”

“A fake one,” he spat out with disgust. “They say he cheated! He owns gambling houses you see; whorehouses, a few ships here and there, a small port for his own private business. He’s a bit of an investor, but I’d say he’s more than that…”

“What do you mean?”

“No one ever really see him. He’s got a long line of men and women working for him, almost a chain from top to bottom, and that makes him almost untouchable.”

“Not for us.”

“Arya,” he chided. “He is like a spider spreading out a masterful web- not only here but in London too. It’s full of corruption, and he’s made a hefty profit from his schemes.”

“All the more reason to take him down,” I told him. “And get Sansa back.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible. She may not make it out alive.”

“He’ll kill her?”

“No, its…” Bran let out a short sigh, while he scratched his nails against the hardwood surface. “We have to find father.”

“What are you not telling me?”

“There’s rumours…”

“And?”

“Maybe Jaqen is right… maybe Littlefinger… Petyr or whatever you want to call him is more than a man.”

“No one is more than a man, Bran,” I reminded him, and lifted my feet atop of the table to get him back to his normal self.

“Is Jaqen free? I want to speak to him.”

“I’m coming,” I quickly spat out, and let my feet fall of the table so I could stand to my feet. “You’re not asking him anything without me.”

“I want you to stay here.”

“No.”

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Because you are not father,” I answered him with a smug. “Let’s make it quick before he comes back.”

“I’m going to regret this.”

“You are,” I assured him, and gladly opened the door to shoo him through.

* * *

 The ambiance at the dinner table was tense, an awkwardness I felt at every moment as I heard the loud chomping of food from Jaqen H’ghar. I lifted the chicken leg and stuffed it into my mouth, ignoring the low grumblings of my father who wished I used the appropriate cutlery. _He thought I behaved like an animal, so be it._

“We leave tomorrow,” my father announced to us all. “Thank you, Mormont, for giving us the appropriate information.”

“We would be better turning ourselves around from all of the folktale I’ve been hearing.”

“It is folktale, nothing more.”

“Every story has some truth to it.”

“I almost wish Bran and Arya can stay here.”

I dropped the leg bone on the plate and shouted out, “I’m coming!”

“You do not speak to me in that tone.”

“I’m coming,” I said in a softer voice.

“Unfortunately, you are.”

“They can wait in the carriage,” Mormont suggested. “I will gladly keep watch.”

“While I knock on the door and ask to speak to the lady of the house,” my father gibed. “This sounds like a terrible plan.”

“Better than the one you had.”

“I don’t think she should have a choice to come back.”

“If the rumours are true, she has been living with him for some time now.” He stretched out his long arm across the table to retrieve a small beaker full of ground pepper. “Maybe even married.”

“Blasphemy!”

“It is a possibility.”

“If that is true, then there is no way to bring her back.”

“Talking to her is the most reasonable action.”

“It makes me look weak.”

“Level headed,” he argued back, with half a smirk. Mormont lifted up his cutlery with satisfaction as he darted his eyes at the four of us. “I believe everyone at the table can agree.”

“I want to come!” I shouted out and found my father’s fury directed at me with full strength as he laid both of his hands at the sides of the table. “I might be able to convince her.”

“I will not have my daughter anywhere near that man.”

“I am a child! What would he want with me?”

“Oh,” he sneered. “Now, you admit to being a child?”

 _That is what everyone keeps telling me,_ I thought, and found my eyes glancing at Jaqen’s dark figure for a moment. _Everyone except him, of course._

My father did not take notice of my momentary silence, and thought it was enough to continue his meal. Bran narrowed his eyes at me with suspicion, however, before he glanced over to Jaqen and then to Mormont. _Let him think what he will,_ I decided, and reached across the table to grab another chicken leg much to my father’s frustration.

“Mormont, you will stay with my children.”

“They will be taken care of,” the old Scotsman assured him.

“Jaqen you’re with me.”

There was no response on his end, only a slight nod before he continued to fill his plate with food.

“Arya, you will stay put.”

I murmured an inarticulate sound, and knew my sullen look alone was all the answer he deserved at that moment. _He never lets me do what I want._

“And if I don’t come out of there in a few hours I want you to ring the police.”

Bran dropped his fork to the plate and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t think you will come back?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t believe those tales, do you?”

“I hear it from Jaqen, and now the people in this small town of Ireland. At some point, I have to consider if any of it is true.”

Jaqen pursed his lips, stopping his routine of filling his mouth for a blessed moment. I noticed his hesitation before he glanced in my direction, a split second to show he was curious of my unspoken thoughts.

Mormont cleared his throat to get the table’s attention. “Would you like me to gather reinforcements before you go in?”

“No, I will take Jaqen,” my father bellowed with a look of confirmation to the man beside him. “He says he is prepared for anything.”

“Not anything,” he admitted quietly, much to my surprise. “But I know what to expect from him.”

“And that’s why I hired you.”

“I will be payed before we enter.”

“I have the cash on me,” he conceded. “And pay you the rest afterwards, if I make it out alive.”

Jaqen hesitated over his food, clearly annoyed that he would be payed with two installments. “All at once, or not at all,” he argued back. “My life is at stake too.”

“Then you will be sure to drag me out of there, even if I am… _turned_ … as you call it.”

“If you are turned, then I will leave you to that demon,” he hissed from the corner of his mouth. “For you will only become like him.”

“Folktale,” my father countered, as he patted his stomach to show he was full. “Nothing but tales to keep his enemies away.”

“I will be payed before,” Jaqen stated in a deep voice, with his accent stronger than ever.

“You are very determined.”

Jaqen straightened his back, dark eyes glaring at my father as if he wanted to strangle him where he sat. I found my hand tightening around my fork, feeling the energy from this man that was radiating from him. “Father,” I spoke up with my other hand stretched across the table to touch his own. “Pay him.”

“You are not involved.”

“It is the gypsy way.”

 “What would you know about gypsies?”

“I read,” I lied. “Please.”

“Very well,” he grumbled, and shot Jaqen a look of hatred before he rose himself from his seat. I noticed the look was quickly reciprocated and wondered how the man I felt so strong a connection too, could feet so much burning resentment towards my father. _The bond must surely flow between us then,_ I realized, and down casted my eyes in shame as I found my cheeks turning a slight shade of pink. It wasn’t long before I joined my father upstairs as well, and feigning exhaustion before my family members allowed me to retire early for tonight. I had a sleepless night to say the least, and I knew the reason why- it had something to do with a certain gypsy.

* * *

 

 It was just after breakfast that I roamed around the stable yard alone. I snuck out when my father wasn’t looking and settled myself on a stack of hay for some quiet musing. Twisting and snapping a few stray wires of hay was my sole amusement, a thing to occupy my mind as it continued to rave on. There was something different, and not even my frequent lies to myself could change it. I felt different, just as my body was different from a year ago. My mother used to laugh that I was becoming a woman, but I never wanted to change, but change had come all to soon, and with it was a new feeling of emotions I had never encountered before.

I plopped down to my feet and went over to some lodger’s horse, an old thing that must have seen better days. I found a brush somewhere on the floor and began to stroke it meditatively, feeling the need to be consumed with the task to past the time. We would be heading out soon, and with it would come days of being on the road as we traveled westward and then a little north to the isolated lands belonging to Lord Baelish. _He has a castle,_ I deliberated, _it must be so different from where Sansa and I grew up._

“Your father is looking for you,” a deep voice bellowed across the stables, and I was familiar enough with his voice to not look up. “You should go to him.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“You said I could yesterday,” he reminded me. I looked over my shoulder, but I could not see him, which only annoyed me further.

“Why are you always in hiding?”

“Because I don’t want to be seen.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Then I will let you see me,” he answered me, and drifted out of a shadow I had not noticed before. “You look unhappy.”

“I’m… worried.”

He remained silent as he approached me, and I noticed how blank his expression was when he finally stood in front of me. “Your father has been inquiring about the coin. I want you to take it back, before he ever enters that house.”

“Should I steal it back?”

“Do whatever you think is best.”

“It really is valuable to you.”

“It is worth more than your life,” he restated. “Maybe- maybe even mine.”

“I will get it back.”

He took a step backwards, half turning before he looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “What were you just thinking about?” he questioned, in an unsteady voice. “Before I spoke up.”

“I don’t remember.”

He took another step away, apparently half-satisfied with my answer. He stopped once he was a foot away, maybe even more before he turned around again. “You will stay in the carriage with your brother, won’t you? When we get to the castle?”

“Do you want me too?”

“Very much,” he admitted in a soft tone of voice. “But I know you have a will of your own. You are like a horse, wild and untamed.”

“My father says I am like a wolf.”

“Yes, a wolf will do.” He blinked at me with puzzlement, slightly squinting before he turned away and left me for good. I knew from then on we would become strangers, for we would be in frequent presence of my father, and my father could never know what we truly were to one another, even if I hardly knew it myself.  


	4. Thirst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned Stark avoids the advice of others and goes into Lord Baelish's mansion alone.

**Ned**

When we left the rented cottage it was daybreak, and now as I steered this small open carriage down the dusty road, I began to wonder why the clouds were becoming grey. It seemed like the weather was turning against us, just had fate had done so many times before as we traveled throughout the north-western part of Ireland. We were close to Lord Baelish’s home- closer than ever before.

I looked down at my map that was laid out on my lap, knowing I had only a few more miles to go before we reach his Lordships castle. An empty meadow surrounded us, a few sparse trees grew out of this abandoned farmland that looked as though it had been neglected for several years or more. To me the world looked dim, although the towering grey castle at the edge of the sea shore did have some certain appeal to it. It looked illustrious, and I almost felt jealous at the sight of it, even when I could only distinguish the silhouette of the rocky castle from where I sat. My family was fast asleep behind me; Mormont was attempting to write one final letter on my behalf, in case I never made it out of the castle alive. The reason for this is, I now believed in the stories… those frightful tales the local villagers relayed to us as we traveled along the coast of Ireland. They warned us to go back, but he had taken my child, and I couldn’t desert my eldest daughter.

“It will rain,” Jaqen declared with a thin stray of hay hanging out the corner of his mouth.

“You said it wouldn’t.”

“It wasn’t suppose too,” he mumbled, while he squinted with one eye to look upward at the sky.

I focused on the straight dirt path, noticing how infrequently it was used. The area seemed to be abandoned and that alarmed me most of all. _There is not a soul out here,_ I thought, and found it strange that hours before it was even noon the land belonging to Lord Baelish was completely uninhabited.

“I think we should scope out the area first,” I spoke over my shoulder. “Position the carriage not to close to the castle. Mormont you will stay on guard at all times, and if there is any trouble I want you to leave.”

“The two of you?” he hushed, so it wasn’t loud enough to wake my children.

“Arya and Bran’s lives are more important.”

“A child needs their father,” he countered.

“They are almost grown. I know they will survive without me.” I looked over my shoulder to take a good look at the man I had now regarded as a friend. “But I have to take this risk to save my daughter.”

“You have so many other children,” he reminded. “What of them?”

“Robb will be their guardian.”

“You told me has just reached the age of one and twenty,” he reasoned. “Will he take care of his siblings _and_ your wife?”

“He has no choice.” I rubbed my hand over my beard roughly, hating the fact that every word Mormont had said was right. I could hear the crashing of the sea now, blasting across the craggy cliffs that sent an ominous roar to the lonely road on which we traveled. The refreshing scent of the breeze hit me as well, and I took deep breaths to calm myself down as I saw the castle fast approaching. We pasted a rusted black gate that was falling apart, unhinged and leaning over to the side in an unsafe manner. The brown patches of grass and great pools of mud showed the land was unattended too and felt a bit of sympathy for Sansa knowing it was so very different from her own home. _Could this even be considered a home,_ I wondered, _it looked so far from it._

I remembered when Varys told me the news that Sansa had run away I couldn’t believe it, but now seeing the evidence for myself- this castle that she now considered to be her home felt like pure mockery. _She threw everything away for this? A loving home, a family, a handful of friends to live in utter seclusion with the devil himself._ I felt my jaw tighten at that, so furious with the circumstances that I didn’t see a large rock at the side of the dirt path and found the front of the carriage wheel slam into it and jolt backwards.

“What did you hit?” Jaqen quickly asked and leaped off the side of the carriage to personally investigate the matter. “I thought you took off the whole wheel,” he relayed, as he knelt low to inspect the damage. “It will be fine. You can travel further.”

“No, I will stop here,” I announced to the entire party, since Arya and Bran were abruptly woken from their sleep. “It’s a long walk, but I’ll need it.”

“Harder for you to escape,” Mormont pointed out, after he pointed at the castle that was still an uncomfortable distance from us. “Unless you can run.”

“I am too old to run.”

Jaqen reached into the open carriage and pulled out his mysterious bag. With the straps tightly gripped in his right hand he held it close to his side with a look of resolution. “I am ready,” he pointed out, and nodded his head at me to show his determination to be gone at once.

“I must say goodbye to my children,” I breathed out sadly, and dropped myself into the inner part of the carriage to take a hold of my children at once. I was not an affectionate man, but I gave each of my child a long heartfelt hug.

“You’ll come back,” my son assured me, and I thought for the first time he was looking like a grown man. “I know you will.”

“Let me come,” Arya pleaded, and took a hold of the flaps of my jacket to tug at it incessantly. She knew by my look I wouldn’t give in, but she continued to hold me even when I inched myself away.

“You are too valuable, love,” I promised her, and took a hold of her face to peck my lips on her soft cheek. “Too young.”

“Please!”

“No, I will not lose another,” I resolved, and took one hard look at her before I forced myself away. It hurt to let go of her, feel those small knobby fingers piercing the sides of my wrist as she tried to hold on. I never wanted to go, but I knew I had to try and get my other daughter back. I wanted my family to be whole again, to have us all together for one last time.

“We should go,” Jaqen softly said, as he backpedaled down the road impatiently, not even waiting for me to climb down the damn carriage yet. 

“I’m coming!”

“Good luck, Lord Stark,” Mormont called out to me, while stretching out his hands to lightly wave a goodbye. “They will be safe with me.”

“Get the police if I don’t come back.”

“They might not come.”

“Try anyways!”

 I jumped out of the carriage and stumbled to the ground; Jaqen was helpful enough for once to help me back to my feet. “You’re a fool for going in there,” Mormont laughed, as I turned around to face them one last time.

“Aye, but I must do what is right,” I told them with a brooding look, and wished Arya’s eyes were on me instead of the man beside me. “I hope you all will understand one day.”

Jaqen was the first to turn around and trudge down the muddy road, and I felt if I didn’t move from my children now, then I would never do so again. “Curse the devil who made me do this,” I muttered under my breath, and patted the coat pocket near my chest where a loaded revolver was stationed. _One shot in the center of his heart and it will end it all,_ I thought, and found there was not a sense of guilt knowing I was going into the castle to commit cold murder.

“In my country,” Jaqen began, with a cold hard look at my side profile. “We prepare for men like him.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“In Slavic countries they bury the dead with cloves of garlic, in the hopes of keeping such vile things away. We wear crosses too and stay in holy churches. We do not go out after dark- ever.”

“Just a hoax… superstition.”

“And you wonder why a man like him has survived for so long.”

Jaqen unzipped his bag as he continued to walk, and threw a handful of coppery coloured crosses over his neck and down his chest. “You should have one.”

“No.”

“It could save your life.”

“I will not fall into such crude delusions,” I gruffly said, and brushed his hand away from me that contained another handful of cross necklaces. “Why do you keep so many?"

“To keep the bastard away.” He reached into the bag for the second time, shifting things around to reach for a long black cloak that he pulled out of the small bag. “Let me put it on,” he remonstrated, and slunk it over his small form before he pulled out two small handguns and stuck it in each of his pockets. “Finishing touch,” he laughed, and unfolded a newsboy cap to place it firmly over his head. “I want to look like the Irish.”

“You look ridiculous,” I told him, and pointed at his long hair that fell down the sides of his hat.

“My hair,” he observed, and tore the cap off to tie up his shoulder length hair. “With this on, can you still see it?”

“Barely.”

“Good,” he stated with a disguised accent, which made my eyebrows raise up when he sounded so much like the villagers we had spoken to earlier. “Let’s go.”

“You have two guns,” I noted, as we walked side by side. Jaqen puled out a small wooden box and threw his bag down with some reluctance before he stuck the carved in box into a large pocket at the front of his coat where a gun was kept. "Why do you need them?”

“Protection,” he replied in his usual Russian accent.

“One gun isn’t enough.”

Jaqen turned his head to look over his shoulder, taking in the carriage that was slowly disappearing before our very eyes. “I gave a gun to your daughter,” he told me. “I have a feeling she will come.”

“She will if you gave her that,” I scolded. “What the hell where you thinking?”

“About your children,” he drawled out with a heavy accent.

“I decide if Arya should carry a gun.”

Jaqen looked over his shoulder the second time, but his shoulder seemed to hunch over with regret. He turned his face to me and was about to open his mouth, when he suddenly decided against it.

“What do you want to say to me?”

“What will you do once we get there?” He pointed ahead of us where the castle towered over our heads, and then to the left where the cliff’s edge was just next to the long stony fortress. “I can hide, if you’d like?”

“No, you come inside.”

“I could investigate the area, and see if I can find anything.”

“I want you inside.”

“I think it would be-”

“Inside,” I repeated in a strong tone of voice.

Jaqen stated something in his foreign tongue, but he kept walking beside me with slow strides. He had no sense of urgency to reach the house and spent most of his time staring across the tall grass that stood on either side of us. The sounds of the sea grew louder, and the clouds overhead turned a dark stormy grey. _This must be the end,_ I thought wearily, and felt the whole world was silently revealing my fate. 

“If you make it out alive I want you to take care of my family,” I asked of him, and raised my hand in front of his hand for me to shake.

“We do not shake hands,” he told me, and kept his hands in his pocket before he spat on the ground in front of us. “I will watch them, though.”

“I noticed- noticed,” I stammered out with uneasiness. “Arya looks at you a great deal.”

“She is curious,” he replied with a small shrug of the shoulders. “They all are.”

“Not with curiosity.”

“Then how?” he challenged, with a raise of his chin to reduce his small stature.

“Too long.” I ground my teeth together, feeling some unreserved resentment towards this man. “Too hard.”

Jaqen remained silent, and that irked me further. I turned my head to his profile and noticed his blank expression, not a hint of the reasons behind my daughter’s behaviour was betrayed by him.

 _This could be my last few minutes alive, and here I am wondering why my daughter looks at Jaqen that way._ I clicked my tongue at the top of my mouth and lengthened my strides to approach the old oak door with a matted black knocker in the front. _I should turn back now._

“Do you have any children?” I asked Jaqen as my hand hovered over the knocker. There was a cry of a raven overhead, and the sounds of the sea seemed to shallow up the last of my senses.

“No.”

“Then you will not understand why I am doing this.”

“No.”

 _Only a father would,_ I mused, and banged the knocker loud enough to make sure someone in the castle could hear it. Silence ticked on, a minute, and then maybe two as I continued to knock on the door relentlessly. Jaqen had taken a step back from the steps and looked to the left and right to see any suspicious behaviour conducted near the windows.

“No one is home,” I deliberated aloud. I took a step backwards and placed my hands on my hips as I considered the situation. “I thought Mormont tracked him down. Everything seemed to align to this spot. Could he be wrong?”

Jaqen pursed his lips, and raised his hand for me to be silent as he crouched down low and pressed himself to the walls of the castle in an effort to go unseen. He placed his finger on his lips for me to remain silent, before he tip-toed away from me to make his way around the back of the house. _The man’s as silent as a cat,_ I thought, and just when he had turned the corner I heard a low thumping inside the house. “Jaqen,” I hissed, but he was already out of sight.

The clouds overhead became darker, eclipsing the last of the sunlight to my dismay. I stepped down the steps completely and felt the desire to turn back when I heard another low thump inside of the fortress. _Where the devil did Jaqen go?_

The sounds of the sea almost sounded like screams, so high-pitch as they crashed across the cliff side that I thought I was losing my nerve. _I’m not going in there,_ I thought, and just when I turned around to step upon the muddy path did I hear the front door unlock. “Father?” a small voice replied, and I felt my breath get stuck in my throat at that moment.

My feet slowly shifted in the dirt, and once I fully faced the castle did I raise my eyes and to see my daughter staring right at me.

“Sansa,” I mouthed, and felt my chest heave at the sight of her. “You’re- you’re alive,” I cried out, and staggered towards her filled with relief. “My dear child,” I wailed, and outstretched my arms as I approached the great oak door that was half opened. “Come, let me see you.”

“Father,” she repeated, and strode out of the doorway dressed in a flowing silver dress that descended all the way to the ground. She looked more beautiful than I ever remembered. Why, she almost glowed!

“You will get your dress dirty,” I happily said, and lifted the back of her dress so it wouldn't drag in the mud. “Sansa, why did you leave?”

Her eyes darkened at that moment, and she took the hem of her dress from my hand to hold it in her own. Her movements were stiff suddenly, and even her gaze could not retain in my own.

“Sansa, tell me what is wrong,” I begged of her, and laid my hand on her bony shoulder that had become somewhat thinner and frail since I last saw her. Now that I think about it, she was much paler than before. Her eyes too, there was something wrong in it- too dark for me to decipher with a single glance. “Can my daughter not tell me anything anymore?”

“Come inside and I will tell you,” she uttered in a chilly voice, like the icy sea that raged beneath us. 

“Why not tell me here,” I inquired, and did everything in my power to not focus on Jaqen H’ghar who was now sneaking behind Sansa’s back to get through the narrow crack of her front door.

“It is cold here,” she relayed in an empty voice. Her eyelids never blinked, and I found it odd that she should focus her gaze at my feet rather than her own father’s face.

“You are unwell. I could take you to a doctor?”

“I am healthy.”

“There are a lot of doctors here, but not as much as London,” I laughed, even though it was a fake one. “We miss you, you know?”

She swallowed hard, and grimaced when a thin ray of sunlight shined at the side of her face. “I- I need to go inside,” she fretted, and released herself from my grip to sprint inside.

“Heaven above,” I muttered, and realized everything Jaqen H’ghar had told me was true. “She really is one of them.”

 _If I go in there I die,_ I realized, and found my feet cemented to the ground suddenly. _Is there anyway to help her? To bring her back to the other side? Could she ever become mortal again? Or is it too late?_

I knew Jaqen was inside, and to leave him in there with Sansa- a potential _Vampir_ would be fatal. _He might be the only one who knows what to do._

A few drops of rain fell over my head, and I squinted upwards to see a storm threatening to pour. _My children and Mormont will be stuck out in the rain,_ I realized, _but I supposed it was better than being locked away in the castle with those immortal creatures that feasted on human blood._

I sighed as I reached into my coat pocket and took a good feel of the revolver handle, hoping against hope that I would be able to use it well. _I only pray it won’t have to be used on her._

I took a small step forward, knowing she was the bait that was slowly leading me in; the fly stuck in a spider’s web as the eight-legged creature cunningly crept down to ensnare me. I was done for, I knew, but honour compelled me to go further.

The soft ground squished beneath my feet like pool of blood; I swear my head felt heavy, weighted by the horrors that were waiting inside for me. A gust of wind blew across a sole tree in the front yard, and the way the breeze blew through sounded like a low moan, as if the dead itself were warning me not to enter the devil’s abode. I only wish I could hear the fearful screams from Jaqen H’ghar, maybe that would be enough for me to turn myself around.

The front door swung open wider, and a small man dressed in a dark navy-blue evening suit stood before the open doorway. “Good afternoon,” he uttered in a smooth voice, though there was no attempt to hide that outrageous Irish brogue that I detested so much. “You are Lord Stark,” he presumed, with half a smile that made me feel uneasy. “Come closer,” he urged, in an amiable tone of voice, a disguise to show how truly dangerous he was. “Closer,” he said in a softer one, as he leaned his arm across the doorway to temporary block the way.

“Lord Baelish,” I grumbled, after I mounted the first two steps. “Am I right?”

“You are.”

“You stole my daughter away from me.”

He tutted under his breath, tilting his head slightly away so he could watch me from the corner of his eye.

“Am I wrong?” I demanded, before I mounted the last step and stood directly in front of him.

“You’re wrong,” he replied in a low silky voice, with half a smirk. “Your daughter will tell you herself, if you come inside.”

“You mean she will recite everything you asked of her.”

“Your daughter…” He dropped his arm from the doorway and moved to the side, so I could potentially walk through. “Has a mind of your own, as you are well aware of.”

“She did until you came along.”

“Your daughter tells me you are a civilized man.”

“I am.”

“Then… let’s talk this out like civilized people.”

“You are the greatest criminal mastermind along the Irish coast,” I pointed out. “From what I’ve heard as I traveled up here you are not- in the very least, a gentleman.”

Lord Baelish bowed his head and smiled widely in a maddening way, as if my words had only amused him. “Your daughter has been telling me some interesting things about you too.”

“I imagine so,” I shouted out with sarcasm. “And you will want to tell me about it inside.”

“You are welcome into my household,” he relayed, and let his pale bony hand wrap around the corner of the door. “But in the end, it is your choice.” He looked over my shoulder to catch sight of something far off in the distance, probably noticing the carriage left out in the center of the field. “And to anyone out there as well,” he added, with devilish smirk. “The choice is yours, Lord Stark.”

I looked over my shoulder to make sure Arya hadn’t been stupid and followed me down the dirt path. When I turned back to face Lord Baelish I saw he had already gone inside again, and I felt a twisting feeling inside as I lifted my foot on the final platform and stepped into the darkened castle.

The door immediately shut behind me, and I hardly let out another breath before I felt an arm covering the front of my face and mouth. I used both of my fingers to pry at his arm, but he strengthened his hold as he led me forward into the darkened room. I tried to yell, not even knowing what I was trying to say, and feeling helpless I used my free arm to jab my elbow into his side. He made a sound of pain, and quickly tilted my head into a painful angle until I feared my neck might break.

“Petyr,” a voice called out in the darkness, and I heard something swinging over my head like a chandler before I heard footsteps coming towards me.

“Sansa.”

“Petyr,” the voice repeated, and this time I knew for sure it was my daughter. I called out her name into the man’s sleeves, but it was muffled by the thickness of his coat.

“Let him go,” she demanded. He released his hold of me suddenly, and pushed me ahead of him until I was left standing in the darkness. “He’s _my_ father!”

“He came inside.”

“He is still my father.”

“Sansa,” he said in an overly seductive voice, and I heard the soft padding of boots on the hardwood floor that slowly encircled me. “You can’t tell me that you aren’t thinking about it too.”

A silence fell between the two of them, and the only thing I could hear was my laboured breaths and the wind howling outside of the castle windows.

“There are others,” the man gleefully uttered.

“Who else did you bring?” Sansa questioned, and I knew it was addressed to me.

“You’re family.”

“Why?”

“We want you home.”

“This is my home,” she maintained. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Silence fell again, and I noticed there was not other sounds in the house. I felt like the only living, breathing thing there in the darkness, and it felt painfully obvious as I felt the man’s presence slowly closing in. “You know the rules,” Lord Baelish cooed with sheer delight. “He stepped into the house.”

“I should have told him not too.”

“But you didn’t,” he squeaked, and I heard something like the sound of clothes brushing together as if they were touching.

“Let him be our guest.”

“I do not host guests,” he hissed like a snake, and I could almost imagine the insidious web of his falling over my head. “Not for a very long time.”

“Oh, but he is so hot,” Sansa wheezed. “I can almost feel his body heat… taste- taste his sweat.”

“He reeks of it.”

“Oh, Petyr,” she moaned, and I heard a sound like she was falling into his body. “Send him away.”

“No, he should stay,” he relayed in a smooth voice. “At least for dinner.”

“No,” she begged, and at that moment a match was struck and I saw a fiendish glow come over Lord Baelish’s visage. His eyes were blood red.

“Good God!” I cried out, and stepped backwards filled with fright. Sansa caught me as I slipped off-balanced, and caught me with uncommon strength, especially for a girl as slender as her. “Sansa, how did you-”

“Don’t move,” she warned, and forced her head downwards as if she was struggling with something inside of her. Lord Baelish took steps backwards, with his eyes eagerly focused on us both, and only when he realized nothing would happen did he turn his head and set the last of the match onto a silver wick of a deathly pale candle.

“You are weaker than myself,” Lord Baelish observed as he watched my daughter. “The desire is strong in you.” She shook her head feverishly, before she suddenly let me go. She ran straight into her lovers arms and buried her head in his chest as she let out a mournful sob. “Do not shed wasteful tears, my sweet.”

“Send him away!”

“I can’t.”

“Petyr, please. Oh, please, let someone go just _once._ ”

“We are bound by a sacred oath,” he informed her, as he gently stroked the back of her hair with his free hand. “We cannot go into a house uninvited by a guest, you know this.”

“Yes.”

“But if they come to us…”

“They are ours,” she shrilled into the center of his chest, and I saw the way her nails dug into the side of his arms in a frantic way. Lord Baelish lifted her head to face his own and to my horror he kissed her, so deeply it made me look away. “Petyr,” she purred, and I heard her kiss him back. “Yes,” she cried, and I watched how the candlelight around the room flickered and faded away as Lord Baelish barely had a handle of the base of the candle.

“After,” he bellowed in a deep voice. “I promise, I will have you all to myself.”

“Yes.”

“But for now, we have a guest.”

“No, don’t even call him that! I know…” My daughter’s words were caught off when he placed his filthy lips on hers again. The rest of her words were drowned out with the sounds of their disgraceful actions, and I had half a mind to take out my revolver and shoot the two of them on the spot. _It's so easy,_ I thought, and reached into the flap of my inner coat to feel the weapon at hand. “Father,” Sansa breathed out, as though she had lost her breath. I halted my movements, awkwardly having my hand inside of my coat with a guilty expression. “What are you doing?”

“I had an itch.”

Lord Baelish smirked at me with a knowing look, but my poor daughter was still trying to work out the feeble lie I had given her.

Lord Baelish wrapped his arm around my daughter’s neck and kissed the side of her cheek affectionately. His eyes shifted from bright sapphire blue to red, and I wondered if it had something to do with his desire for my blood. “Do you know what we are?” he asked, while his eyes still retained its long gaze on my daughter’s profile.

“You are a vampire.” He lifted his head upwards, and kissed the side of Sansa’s temple, letting it last longer than it should. “You’re the workings of the devil.”

“And yet, you come into the _devil’s_ home.”

“I want my daughter back.”

“You mean, my wife.”

I growled at him, and quickly retrieved the revolver to point at his face. “Let her go, or I’ll kill you.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, staring me down to see if I was brave enough to pull the trigger.

“Father,” Sansa entreated. “Don’t do this!”

“I want you home!”

“I can’t go back.”

“No! I know- I know you can.”

“It’s too late,” she begged, with her hands in front of me for a final plea. “Save yourself.”

“I have the gun in my hand,” I reminded her. “I have the power over him.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Just watch me,” I told her and steadied my hand to get ready to fire right at his face.

Lord Baelish tilted his head slightly, before he blurted out, “Think about what you are doing?”

“I have.”

“Sansa,” her husband warned.

She placed her hand over his chest in desperation, sensing he was about to do something she wouldn't like. “Petyr, don’t.”

“Tell him to lower the weapon.”

“I did.”

“Again,” he ordered in a darker tone, with his gaze turning fully at her.

“Father, lower it.” I hesitated for a moment, hearing the pain in the back of her throat as if she was begging for my life. “He _might_ let you go.”

“Then I have a better chance with this weapon.”

“Pet-” It was too late, the candle snuffed out, I shot into the air, and then feared I might have hit my daughter instead. I was struck in the face, and the power of it made me fall down to the carpet and roll over to my side. The gun was gone. There was a scream which echoed throughout the castle, and then I found a cry coming from my own mouth as I felt a blasphemous pain digging into the side of my neck. I clawed at Lord Baelish’s face, digging my nails into the side of his face to find those dreaded red eyes that were glaring down at me. “Petyr!” another cry came from somewhere over me, but the pain grew stronger and I found a numbness in my arms as my energy depleted. “I will _never_ forgive you.”

The pain stopped, and I found the jabbing sensation leave me as I laid their limp on the floor. My weak arm stretched upwards, grasping at the side of my neck as I gurgled out in pain. Blood was everywhere, on the ground, pouring down the side of my neck and swimming down the front of my shirt. _Its too late._

“No, don’t touch me.”

“Sansa, it's our way.”

“He’s my-”

“I know who he is, my sweet.”

“Petyr, please don’t touch me with his blood all over you.”

“Because you want it too.”

“No!” she cried out in the darkness. There was a momentary silence, and I found the lids of my eyes closing on its own accord. _If only I could escape,_ I thought, and tried to at least crawl to my knees. _Where would the door be? Is it just behind,_ I wondered, and wished to god that there was at least some form of light.

“Where does he think he’s going?” a voice laughed in the darkness. A strong hand lifted me up and brought me to my feet, but I was too weak to stand on my own. I knew Lord Baelish was holding me, his elusive scent alone was enough for me to cover my neck for fear he would attack me a second time. “You really think you can escape?” he laughed again, much to my horror.

“Petyr, put him down.”

“On the ground?”

“He is too weak to stand.”

“I took so litttllleeee,” he drawled out, with a firm hand pressed over my own to squeeze the length of my fingers and thumb that held the gaping hole at the side of my neck. “Oh, but there is so much more to take. Sansa, sweetling, do try some.”

“No.”

“You want it, I know.”

“No, I- I don’t.”

“End his suffering now. He will forgive you.”

“The door isn’t too far, just throw him out.”

“And let him live? You know what he will become if we do.”

“Oh, why did I ever meet you?” she cried out, and took a hold of me with a certain possessiveness. “If I only knew.”

“So, you regret it?”

“No, I don’t. It’s just- just,” she stammered out, but couldn’t finish the rest of her sentence. “The desire is too strong.”

“Strong,” he repeated, and threw the whole of my weight on my daughter’s shoulders to bring my soaking wet neck closer to her face.

“Sansa,” I croaked, and found my voice had left me. “Take me home. To your mother, your sister, and brothers.” I coughed into the silent gloom and tried to persuade her one more time. “We need you.”

“You shouldn’t have come! You were safe, all of you.”

“I made a promise to her,” Lord Baelish countered. “None of you would come to any harm. But you came into my house, and now…”

“No.”

“There is nothing left to do.”

I laid my cheek over my daughter’s and whispered into her ear, “I love you, Sansa. Don’t let him do this to me.”

She caught my face with both of her hands and kneaded her thumb over my bushy beard. “Then let me save you,” she cried, and I heard her nose sniveling with tears before I felt a burning pain at the side of my neck again. I fought against her, beat my fists into her chest and sides, but it was no use, the scoundrel had pulled my arms behind my back and before I knew it, I was slipping into darkness, faster than ever before. “San…” I chocked out, a low gurgle from my open mouth before I fell against the groove of her neck and shoulder blade and felt the horrors of her nails digging into my flesh with awful hunger. I heard a low moan escape the back of her throat and realized only then that I could do nothing to stop her. She would have her fill of me, and the last of my daughter was gone the second she tasted my blood- the blood that would condemn me to my death.

 

 


	5. In Another Lifetime

**Jaqen**

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on the wall behind me. I had been locked away in this closet for hours, and I was starting to wonder if I could take anymore of it. The house had fell silent an hour ago, maybe even less, since I heard the baleful tears coming from Sansa Stark in the upper quarters of this great castle. She was silent now, and so was her husband’s gentle remonstrates, and I knew that my small window of opportunity to escape was nearing.

I took the liberty to outstretch my legs and let out a small sigh of relief; I had successfully entered their household undetected and managed to hide in a closet next to the front door. I knew my way around the house, a logical conclusion since I studied a map of the former tenant, Lord Grayson’s household for some time now. _They could be anywhere on the upper levels,_ I noted, and since the house was nearly pitch-black it would work against me. The small glimpse I had of the drawing room showed it was finely furnished, but there was a thin layer of dust and cob-webs that showed it hadn’t been attended to in a good long while. The house had felt lifeless- empty, just like the heart of Littlefinger; a man I swore to kill over my sister’s grave some eight years ago. _Look how long it took to track him down,_ I noted, _but this search ends tonight._

I heard footsteps running up to the front steps outside, and then a singular silence fell where I could only hear the torrential rains beating down on the house. I positioned myself slightly, so I could open the closet door and peak into the darkness. I noticed there was no sounds coming from upstairs, but it was only a matter of time till the troubled lovers crept down the staircase again. _Or fly,_ I noted, knowing the true power Littlefinger and his wife must have possessed by now. There was a chinking sound from the door lock and after a few minutes the front door cracked open slightly. _Arya,_ I realized, as I saw her small face peak through the crack of the door with her dark hair dripping down her face. She wavered for a few moments before she pushed the door just enough for her to slide through, and then gently closed it behind her. I felt my breath leave me at the sight of her, knowing she was only a few brave steps from her father’s dead body that was currently sprawled across the floor.

“Arya,” I whispered, after I cracked my closet door a little wider. She was lost in the darkness, I knew, but her days alone in the barely lit luggage department of the ship had prepared her for this moment. I told her to come forward in my mother’s tongue, knowing she was used to such addressement from me. Slowly she crept across the floor, and I raised myself to my feet to outstretch my hand to grasp hers. She shuddered at my touch, but when I assured her in Russian that it was me, she seemed to ease her way into my arms. “You should not have come.”

“I had to save father,” she pleaded, while she pressed the front of her face into my chest. She was soaked to the bone, the poor girl, and shivering too as I let her rest in my arms. “Where is he?”

“Come, and sit,” I entreated. I dragged her down to the ground, and promptly closed the closet door behind us. “You must be quiet.”

“Where is he?”

“He is dead.”

“Already?”

“He was dead the moment he stepped through the door.”

“No,” she breathed, and she let her hands fall out of mine suddenly. “It can’t be true.”

“It is,” I hushed, while hoping against hope that we were not overheard.

“Why are you alive?”

“I snuck in… just like you.”

“See, that tool you gave me came into use,” she pointed out with a slight tremble to her voice. “But I came to late.”

“I am sorry… Arya.” The words felt bitter in my mouth. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for this girl, but here she was reaching out for my hands and pressing it firmly against her own. “I couldn’t save him.”

“Knowing my father, he probably walked into a trap,” she lightly laughed. She interlaced our fingers together, which made me strangely uncomfortable at that moment. “Did Sansa do it?”

“Out of mercy.”

“Or that wretched bastard would have done it,” she cursed to my surprise. She let her hands fall away from mine again, and I heard a low sigh escape her. “We can’t kill him, without killing her I guess.”

“We can try.”

“It will be difficult.”

“You would have to distract her.”

“Why are you helping us?”

“I am not doing it for you,” I confessed, before I bit my tongue with regret. A silence fell over us, and I awkwardly shifted my knees closer to my chest until I could rest my bottom chin on top of it. “Its revenge.”

“For Littlefinger?”

“Its personal.”

“He killed someone you loved.”

“He almost destroyed my whole encampment,” I bitterly spat out. I looked about the closet space, realizing how loud I had spoken it. “But it was my sister’s doing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Inessa was the first _Vampir_ to our knowledge, and she was my sister. Day by day she would deceive us all, feasting on our blood. There was a wandering traveller, a foreigner who was interested in our ways. He wanted to make a business deal, but no matter how long he stayed he could never fully understand the gypsy ways. My sister grew to lust after him, and she made him drunk one night and took him to her bed. His name was Petyr Baelish, or as you call Littlefinger; she did not kill him like the rest of our men and women- no she made him as her own… a _Vampir_.”

“So, that is how he became a vampire?”

“Yes. Littlefinger lust for blood became worse than my sister; he took many lives before they managed to drive him out. Luckily, his resentment towards my sister made it easier to bid rid of the devil; he escaped across the mountains and was never seen again.” I paused to lick my bottom lip, unsure if I should go on any further. “I returned to camp after a long time away, and after hearing the frightful tales from my people I quickly discovered what my sister had become. Being her only blood relation left living, I used it as a means to get some time alone with her. I ended up killing her… drove a stake right through her heart to make sure she was dead for good.”

“But you said you made an oath.”

“She and Littlefinger destroyed my encampment, but I knew that he could do some much worse to unsuspecting people. So, I tracked him across Europe for eight long years. Always being evaded by him, but tonight I can finally fulfill my oath and end the curse that my sister has created. He shall walk among the living no more.”

“So, it was your sister that made him like this?”

“Exactly, and now Littlefinger has done the same to your sister.” I croaked, and then purposely cleared my throat to get some of my voice back. “You still have the gun?”

“Yes.”

“And the coin?”

“Yes, I took it off father this morning.”

“Hand it to me,” I ordered, and laid my hand over her knee cap until she dropped the solid coppery coloured coin in the palm of my hand. “Yes, I feel the weight of it and know that it is mine,” I mused aloud. “If you go to my people and show them head’s then they will show you to an assassin, like me.” I heard her gasp slightly, but I had assumed she knew this all along. “They will perform three deaths for you, and then be gone.” I paused for a moment, and let my thumb stroke the hard-grooved surface of the coins. “If it is… tails, as you say in your country than my people will let you stay in an encampment for a day or two with the necessary shelter or food, but you will never become like them. Well, not unless…”

“Unless?” she questioned, and I felt her knees bump into mine as she leaned forward with interest.

I placed the coin back into her hand and curled her fingers together until she could fully grasp the coinage. “Unless you marry one of our own.” I let my hand linger over hers, feeling a deep connection as I retained my hand over her cold, damp one.

“I’m too young,” she joked lightly, though I detected a hint of pain in her voice.

“Then you better keep it.”

“Its yours,” she implored with a high-pitch sound to the latter end of her statement.

“Keep it in your safe keepings,” I teased softly, surprised by the charm that was held in my voice. Arya instantly pulled her hand away from mine and deposited somewhere safe on her person in the darkness. “What of the others?” I questioned her. “Mormont and your brother?”

“They went back to get the police.”

“They will not come.”

“I told them that,” she complained to my own amusement. “Bran wouldn’t let me go, so I pointed the gun.”

“Arya,” I scolded, not expecting that from her.

“I wouldn’t have shot,” she assured me. “I ran.”

“Yes, that’s more like you.”

“If the police don’t show up, Bran told me he would come back for me.”

“And come inside?”

“No, he will wait outside.”

“He doesn’t have the stomach,” I chuckled, before I realized how loud our voices were becoming. “We should be quiet.”

“Says the one who laughed,” she commented, as I heard her shift into a more comfortable position. “Where is Sansa anyways?”

“The last time I heard them was upstairs,” I mused aloud. “She was upset about… what happened earlier.”

“She should be,” Arya fought back. “Killing her own father.”

“She is not your sister anymore, Arya, she could kill you too.”

“I’ll kill her first.”

“Would you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” the small girl admitted with a feeble lisp. “But you killed your own?”

“I was raised to kill,” I told her. “But that doesn’t mean…”

“That you wanted too,” she finished for me. “I understand.”

“You don’t know how many nightmares I’ve had because of it,” I nearly breathed out into the thin air. “How angry I’ve become at myself.”

“It was you or her.”

“She was still my sister,” I stated through gritted teeth. “And now, I am the only one left. Once this is done, I shall return home or whatever’s left of it.”

“I will miss you, Jaqen.”

I bit my lip funnily at her but said nothing in response. I went on one knee and felt the freezing cold gun with the silver bullet destined for one heart alone. I swallowed hard, knowing that the minute I left this closet I was practically a dead man. “They are upstairs, but their coffins are down below.”

“Coffins?”

“Where they sleep,” I reminded her. “But it is almost nighttime,” I fretted. “We should have come earlier when they lay in their coffins.”

“So, we have all night to waste?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“When will they sleep?”

“At dawn,” I groaned, as I patted my other pocket to ensure my secret box was still contained there. “We are in trouble.”

“Could we kill them when they are awake?”

“You mean when they are _strongest?_ ”

“Well, when did you kill your sister?” She noticed the awkward silence and quickly made a small apology. “I never meant it-”

“At night,” I told her with some reluctance. “But that was only because I was forced too. If you wish not to inflict any casualties on your sister, Sansa, I suggest we do it when her husband is fast asleep.”

“Her husband?” she repeated with disgust, and I nearly knocked my head at the back of the wall from laughing.

“We should go.”

“Where?”

“Downstairs, while we still can.” I reached for her hand and gripped it tightly before I popped open the closet door. The air was heavy the moment we opened the door, it smelt of death, and I was weary of the thought of Arya and I stepping over her father’s dead body. “I think its this way,” I whispered, as I looked around in the darkness in search of some dreary light. “If memory serves me right.”

Arya closed the door behind her, thankfully having enough common sense when my own was rattled with rightful nerves. _What if I am leading her the wrong way,_ I worried, as we stepped over a plush carpet and soon found our way on the hardwood floor. Our footsteps echoed much to my dismay, it was light, but not light enough to avoid waking the mice that quickly scattered down the hall.

“There should be a kitchen up ahead,” I mentioned, and was thankful when I saw some form of grey and light blue lighting come from closed shutters up ahead. The kitchen was abandoned, the tables and countertop left completely empty like no one had a descent meal in years. _Do they never eat,_ I fretted, and hoped their diet did not solely consist of human blood. To my surprise, Arya wrapped her arm around my waist protectively, pressing her head into the side of my chest. “Don’t be afraid,” I asked of her, as I led her out of the kitchen and to an adjoining room. The area reminded me of a butcher’s room, with the heavy metal hooks hanging from the ceiling, quietly whispering our ill-timed fate in the chilling evening light. There was a single noose hanging from the ceiling, which made me gulp hard at the empty hole gaping at me with pure mockery. _I can only hope that’s not meant for me,_ I deliberated, before I steered the young Stark girl onwards.

There was a door, heavy and stout, and when I opened it, I realized it was a back door that could lead to the gardens. _A quick escape,_ I noted, and recalled seeing this in the highly detailed map only this morning. “We’re not far.”

“We could leave now,” Arya whispered, as she raised her hand into the icy air outside. “Leave and come back later.”

“Do you want too?”

“Its safer.”

“It is,” I conceded, as I looked out into the heavy rainstorm that raged just outside the door. “But is it wise to be out there for so long?”

“Because it isn’t even night yet,” she agreed with me. “We would catch worse than a cold.” Arya pulled her wet hand back and leaned off my body to close the door for herself. “We stay,” she told me, with her head tilted upwards to look at mine. I gritted my teeth, wishing she wasn’t so determined to put her face so close to mine, and with some struggle I forced my head in the opposite direction of her own.

“We should go,” I told her, and took a small step forward to lead the way for us. She continued to press herself against me, forcing my short arm to wrap around the back of her neck as I led her in this inevitable circle that took us to the back end of the drawing room. “We’re under the main staircase,” I whispered, knowing that there were two sets of staircases adjoined together that would either lead us to the upper levels or the basement of this very old castle. “So, we have to be quiet,” I wheezed, before I heard two sets of voices up above.

A deep Irish brogue was the voice I detected first, as he stood somewhere on the landing of the upper staircase. “It is almost dark,” he observed. “Then we are free to go out.” Arya shifted under my arm, but I was quick to grasp her and take a hold of her mouth lest she speak a word. “Then we will have business to attend too.”

“Another visitor?” his wife quietly asked. “Petyr, I am in no mood to see anyone tonight.”

“Because of your father,” he quietly observed.

“I should have never killed him.”

“He came into our house, you know the rules.”

“It would have been better to make him like us.”

“Maybe,” he admitted aloud, before we heard some shuffling of feet. “But then he would have to live here,” he relayed in a louder voice, that made it almost echo off the walls of this high castle. I heard the staircase creep beneath him, and suddenly realized he was taking his first step to come downstairs. I let go of Arya’s mouth, deciding she wouldn’t make a word if she was just as scared as I was, and then slowly shuffled our feet away from the open staircase. “We have the rooms, of course, but I’m not sure if I would like that.”

“I should have told him to leave.”

“You said you did,” he remarked with an uncharacteristic high-pitch voice.

“I lied.”

“Oh?”

“I told him to come inside.”

“Now, Sansa,” he chided in a lower tone of voice. “That was _very_ bad of you.”

Another sound came from the staircase up above, and I knew that Sansa was now joining her husband down the stairs. “Is that why you chose me? Because you knew I was bad all along?”

“You were the sweetest thing I ever beheld,” he assured her, in a voice as smooth as a finely tuned instrument. “You were like a flower in a garden, those exotic ones that are only kept for her Majesty alone.”

“And you are like toxic air from the factories, like brandy and whiskey, like cigarettes my father used to smoke,” she mused aloud. “All bad for me, but I can’t help it.” Their footsteps had reached the final landing, and I knew they were just a few feet away from us, it was only the elaborately designed staircase that separated us now. “I tried to stay away but… I couldn’t.”

A light suddenly ignited in the room, and it casted an eerie light across the whole drawing room. We could not see the lovers, however, for they were still blinded by the staircase that stood between us. “Am I so bad?” he questioned, with a certain playfulness to his voice.

“No, you were beautiful.”

“You are contradicting yourself, my sweet.”

“You’re like fire and water,” she mused aloud. “Hot and cold.”

“A world of contradictions,” he noted, after he suddenly appeared before my very eyes. Their back was to us, and they were walking arm and arm across the drawing room floor. “How can I be both?” he implored, as his wife nuzzled her head against the black cloak that he was draped in.

“I see the good in you when no one else does.”

“And that is why I love you,” he cooed, and half forgot the candle in his hand as he turned around to face her. “That is why I worship the very ground you walk upon.” He lowered the candle to the floor and went on his knees before her. “That is why I chose you,” he hushed, and lifted the length of her blood red dress to kiss her bare feet that was exposed in her heels. He hitched the dress up a little higher, running his fingers up the side of her ankles and calves, fixated on the grooves of her legs to the point of insanity. Arya stuffed her face into my chest, too embarrassed to watch any further. I looked ahead, however, watching Littlefinger’s startling blue eyes ignite with passion before he closed them to kiss the length of her legs; letting his hands slip upwards in her dress as she softly stroked his thick brown hair that curled effortlessly on his head. He looked so different from the man I saw as a boy, there was no hint of aging, but there was something different in his demure, in his dress and look when he glanced upwards at his wife. “A thousand lifetimes and I will never meet anyone more beautiful than you,” he murmured, as she helped him to his feet.

“You keep saying that.”

“We are immortal, my sweet, for the first time in my life I can look forward to it.”

“Because I am with you.”

“Yes.”

I felt Arya shift in my arms, and when I looked down, I noticed she was finally watching the couple up ahead. “You must have been lonely before you met me,” Sansa observed sadly. “So, terribly alone.”

“I had found the world colder and darker than ever before.”

“And now?”

“It is like a light that found me,” he promised her, and bent his head low to kiss her brow tenderly. He brushed the tiny wisps of hair away, letting his hands fall through the length of her hair that was bountiful as it was beautiful in the candlelight. “A light to my ever present darkness.”

“How so?” she asked him softly, as he swayed her back and forth in his arms like they were dancing.

“What do you mean?”

“How can I be a light in your world, when I’m as dark as you?”

“You think we are the same?”

“Petyr, I just killed my father,” she almost sobbed, and froze her feet in place to bury her head in his chest.

“I am sorry for your loss,” he drawled deep and low, with his accent stretching out each syllable to an unreasonable extent. “I am sorry it had to be him.” She remained silent but submitted in a way by lifting her sad looking eyes to her husband. “Again, you shed tears?”

“I can’t help it.”

“You are not happy,” he observed, as he reached his hand out to catch a tear. “Maybe I should have never brought you here.”

“No, it’s-”

“- you looked so sad when we first came.”

“Petyr, I am happy as long as you are happy.”

“My wife aims to please,” he toyed with her, but his voice was fraughted with sadness. “But she forgets it is my aim to please her as well.”

“I still have dreams of what once was,” she admitted. “Of my life in London, and how foolish I was to not see- see the life I was blessed with.” Sansa slipped out of his arms and lifted her long crimson red dress as she walked across the hall and slipped out of view. “Of the family I had,” her voice echoed across the room. “And friends.”

“So, you regret your life here!” he shouted out in desperation, and instantly lifted the candle off the floor to follow her.

“When I see my father’s dead body here, then _yes,_ I regret it!” she yelled back, and then I suddenly remembered she was probably standing in the exact same spot where he had died hours ago. “Look at him, Petyr, he came all this way to take me back home. Look what I did to him!”

“Sansa.”

“I killed him!”

“Sansa,” he pleaded, and I noticed how the candlelight casted eerie shadows as it rocked back and forth in Littlefinger’s hand. “Tell me what I can do to make it up to you?”

“You can leave me.”

“Is that what you want?” he demanded in a rough voice. “For me to send you back to London. You and I both know what will become of that!” I felt Arya slip out of my arms and quickly creep to the edge of the staircase to have a better look; throwing out leveled prudence I decided to follow her. “If you think it is bad here, wait until you prey on women and children, and become the nightmare that you’ve always feared. Believe me, I spent my whole life doing that, but now we can settle down-”

“Settle down!” she shrilled in frustration.

“I’ve got a system set up. Lowlifes, the whores, the criminals, the orphans that no one cares about will be sent here. We can have them to ourselves and no one would know.”

“But they are still people!”

“Do you want to survive?”

“Nooo,” she shrilled, and fell to her knees in front of her father’s bloody body. “After what happened, I don’t want too!”

I saw a strong grimace across the man, a pain that was nearly indescribable. “Do you wish to condemn me to live alone?” he pleaded, and went to his knees as well, ultimately soiling his pants in the river of blood.

“I don’t want to become like this, Pete.”

“Neither did I, but I found a way to live.” He outstretched his hand over her father’s body in an effort to reach her. “And you will too.”

Sansa was about to reach her hand forward when a shot was fired. I startled back, and in that small moment I caught a waft of smoke coming from Arya’s gun. “Sansa!” a loud voice cried out in the darkness, and I heard a loud yell as if the man was in pain.

“Petyr, hel-”

  I was about to look over when Arya shoved me in the chest to get my attention. “Kill him,” he demanded with the gun still placed firmly in her hand.

“You shot your sister.”

“She’ll live.”

“You shot your sister!” I shrilled out in anger, and pushed her away to run to the edge of the staircase again. Littlefinger held her in his arms, pressing on the wound in her shoulder to stop her from bleeding out. _She made a real mess, didn’t she?_ I glanced behind me to see Arya was just over my shoulder, and her eyes were filled with so much hatred it almost looked black. “You shot the wrong one,” I grunted, knowing this wouldn’t end well for either of us.

“Make it quick.”

I loaded my gun and pointed it in Littlefinger’s direction. _One wrong move and I could shoot the wrong person,_ I took note, and made sure my arm was steady as I held down on the trigger.

“Stay with me,” Littlefinger begged. “Its just a minor wound. I can fix it.”

“You’re in danger,” she cried out. “Go, save yourself.”

“No, I can’t leave you,” he groaned through gritted teeth. “ _Stay_ with me.”

“No, doctor will come near me. Its too late.”

“No, its never too late. I will bring all of hell down if-”

“They are in the _house,_ ” she whispered, though I heard it from where I stood. Littlefinger lowered her head gently upon the floor, and just when I realized this may be the last time to pull the trigger, he flapped his cloak over his entire body and disappeared before my very eyes.

“Where did he go?” I asked and turned my gaze to Arya to see she was just as frightened.

“I’m going to check on Sansa.”

“No, you won’t.” I grabbed a hold of her arm and dragged her away from the spot, taking her behind the rest of the staircase to go the area designated as the library. _I need somewhere to hide._

“We have to-”

“- quiet,” I hissed, hating the eerie silence that fell over the house. I tampered with the door to find it locked and realized the possibility of getting into the library was next to impossible. The next door down the hall was a music room, and I found the door unlocked, so I shoved Arya through first. I took one last look at Sansa and saw her hunched forward on the ground with some white fabric pressed over her wound painfully. _He’s going to do more than kill us,_ I fretted, _before I ducked inside the room._ To my dismay the room was mostly stain glass, a place that was once designed for worship as well as music. There was not a single cross in sight, which was purely coincidental of course. “Arya,” I called out, and saw her creep out from under a wooden desk next to the closed door. “Take this,” I ordered, and gave her a handful of crosses in the bottom of my pocket for added protection. “Unless you want the same fate as your father.”

“You must be furious with me,” she quickly replied, as she threw the crosses over her head.

“You shot the wrong one.” I looked over my shoulder and realized I foolishly forgot to lock the door. I went over quickly to lock it, and just when I turned around to face Arya I saw a shadow of a man standing on the other side of the stain glass window. My hands trembled furiously, but when I felt a soft touch from Arya who had noticed the same, I pulled out my gun and fired at the shadow. The stain glass shattered upon impact, and the dark silhouette was out of sight before I even had time to blink my eyes.

“Where did he go?”

“We need to get out of here.”

“Where did he-”

“Arya!” I yelled out, no longer seeing a need to be quiet. I turned around and unlocked the door, but when I cracked it open a little I felt the hairs on my neck stand up. I froze suddenly, thwarted by my instincts, which was a good thing for a bony hand stuck out of the crack and clung to the door’s edge like a mad man. “Run!” I reloaded my revolver as I took a step back, hearing Arya’s footsteps pound against the heavy wood as she searched for somewhere to hide.

“You,” a deep voice grumbled from the other side of the door. It flung open, and just when I was about to shoot, his form broke apart into a series of black winged creatures- bats. I covered my eyes as they swirled around me, sending a shrilling sound from their mouths that made me cover my ears. One of the bats knocked the gun out of my hand, while others used their wings to beat my solid frame into submission. I covered my eyes with the palm of my hand as they nipped my skin and found the revolver on the ground before I took careful steps backwards. The noises decreased as the bats moved upwards, and then they hovered all around the high-stained glass ceiling that reflected the pale moonlight. “You think you can just kill her and live,” the voice shrieked, from somewhere up above.

I prayed to my god as I held up the hoards of crosses around my neck, knowing this villain had something planned for me if I stood here long enough. “Arya, let’s go!” I cried and made sure the revolver was fully loaded before I charged out the door. I heard footsteps quickly follow me, and I hoped to god it was her. I ran down the short hallway, seeing the candlelight from the drawing room that was kept close to Sansa’s crippled form. “Arya!”

“I’m here,” she argued, but quickly left my side to go towards the candlelight.

“Don’t!”

It was too late, she had already pulled out her revolver as she ran towards Sansa. Out of nowhere a shadow descended from the ceiling and quickly thrust Arya’s small figure to the floor. She rolled around with a shadowless figure until her gun was thrown from her hand, and only then did Littlefinger’s true form appear. I raised my gun to fire, but they were moving across the floor to quickly for me to get a proper aim. There was a painful cry coming from Arya, and I knew I had to go in closer before she got herself killed. “Get off me,” she shouted, and tried too fight back but she was to weak for the man on top of her.

“There are far worse things than death,” he promised her in a scratchy voice, and then lifted her off the ground with his hand fully clasping her hands behind her back and the other pulling on her hair. “Is that your little friend? Tell him to drop the gun.”

“Shoot!”

“I don’t think you heard me,” he threatened, and twisted her arm in some awful manner to make her scream out with gritted teeth. “Drop it.”

I raised the weapon higher and shouted out, “It has silver bullets,” in my mother tongue. He did what I expected, eyes widening with surprise to hear a language he thought he had long forgotten. “The same bullets Inessa used to fear.”

“I fear nothing,” he claimed, before he adjusted Arya’s arm to make her scream louder.

“Then let me make another proposition! Let her go, or I’ll shoot Sansa.” He looked down at his wife next to his feet, and realized the awful predicament he was in. “Let her go.”

Petyr wavered for a moment before he pushed Arya away from him and covered himself in the cloak to disappear again.

“I will shoot her now,” I warned into the darkness, as I stepped in closer to the candlelight. “I will!”

Arya ran ahead of me to pick up her gun, and then went to her sister’s side. “Sansa,” she hushed, and touched her forehead that was already dripping sweat. “I’m sorry.”

“Arya?” she whimpered, as she slipped in and out of reality. “Is that you?”

“I’m here.”

“I’m so glad… to see you.”

“I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” Arya whimpered. “But I couldn’t let you, well…”

I bent down beside Arya and added in: “She is trying to save your life.”

“I don’t want you to become like him.”

“You don’t belong in this world,” I reasoned. “Not like him.”

I pulled out a wooden box, the one thing I carried with me always and smoothed my hand over the surface soberly. There was a dagger in there, a weapon powerful enough to stop Sansa’s beating heart for good.

“I don’t know,” Sansa blurted out through tears. “If I want to live or die, but I know- I know I want to be with him.”

“He’s a monster!” Arya yelled out.

“No, he is kind and pure. I love him, Arya, and maybe one day…” she paused to let out a painful sob. “One day you’ll understand what its like to be loved, truly loved.”

“Your disillusioned, Sansa.”

“No, I’m in love,” she quietly replied. “That’s what it does to you.” She leaned forward a bit more to get a better look at her sister. “Leave now, before its too late. He’s right! There are worse things than death, if he gets his hands on you. Go!”

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

“Take father’s body and go!” she cried out, with a veil of tears covering both of her cheeks.

I lifted the gun in front of them both before I uttered, “I came here to kill the man, and I’m not leaving till my duty is done.” I rose to my feet and dropped the wooden box in front of Arya’s feet. “You know what to do with it.” The girl looked so grave as she opened the box and held the weapon in hand. “I know she is your sister,” I breathed. “But you also know what she’s done.”

“Why can’t you do it?” she asked, with a squeal to her voice.

“Because I did not come here to kill her, but you…” I bent down to be at eye level with her. “… did. I can see it in your eyes.”

“No.” I rose to my feet, but not before laying the long silver dagger in the palm of her hand. “No!”

_If she loves her sister, she will kill her now._

“You can’t make me do this,” Arya cried out with bitterness, as I pulled off my newsboy cap and tossed it into the pool of blood surrounding her father. “Jaqen!”

I ran up the flight of steps and stood in the center of it with my hand firmly clasping the silver coloured gun. “Petyr! Come out and face like a man.”

“You forget…” his voice echoed in the surrounding darkness of the house. “… that I am no longer a man.”

There was a painful cry down below, and when I looked Sansa had somehow pinched Arya to the ground with her face barrowing down to the side of her neck. “Nooo!” I screamed out and sprinted down the stairs to get a proper shot, when all of a sudden, the ground was flooded with rats. I loaded my gun on them stupidly, realizing I should have saved it for the real danger I was about to face. “Arya,” I cried out, hating the teary sobs escaping her as the women was drinking the very life out of her. I loaded the gun while sprinting towards her when I felt a heavy slam to my body and found myself rolling down the rest of the staircase and crashing into a bannister. I looked ahead of me and saw nothing, and then back at Arya that was still crying out in pain as she continued to fight back. _Her blood is making her sister stronger,_ I realized, and jumped to my feet to stop the madness from going further.

“Going somewhere?” a voice asked, and knocked me down from behind, so that I would fall chest first in front of the two sisters. I instantly cried out in pain as Littlefinger stomped into the middle of my back. I was laid my hands on the floor to lift myself up when he kicked me at the side of my head, making my head knock violently to the right, nearly severing my head from my body. I found the room around grow black quickly, slipping in and out of consciousness at the man lifted me up. “He’s wearing crosses.”

“They both are,” his wife promptly replied. “But I made sure hers was covered up first with her jackets.”

“I can’t even go near his,” he grumbled. “Sansa?” he asked, before he dropped me flat on the floor. “Are you alright?”

“The bullet…. It still gives me pain.”

“The blood sustains you. Finish her off!”

“She is my sister,” she exclaimed with a surprising amount of empathy. I tilted my head on the ground to watch the scene, but I noticed how blurry my vision was quickly becoming. _I have too stay awake,_ I told myself, and rolled over till I was flat on my back to see the blackened ceiling above me.

“If you don’t recall, she tried to kill you.”

“She’s confused.”

“Your whole family is confused for coming here!”

“Petyr.”

“You must understand I can’t let anything happen to you. If something happens, I may very well lose my mind… I’d bring down hell itself.”

“Nothing will happen to me.”

“Then drink,” he ordered, and threw Arya’s half-conscious body in front of her. “And then I will send for a doctor and get you all nicely patched up.” He bent down to retrieve Arya’s weapon and unloaded the bullets till it clattered on the floor. “Its not silver, you’re lucky.”

“What’s wrong with silver?”

Littlefinger bent down to retrieve the knife I gave to Arya in the hopes that she would kill her. He stood over me with it suddenly, tilting it around his thumb and finger as he gazed into my eyes with surprisingly startling sapphire blue. “It is our weakness, as this man knows all to well. Haven’t I seen you before?” He pressed the tip of his boot on my chest till I wheezed in pain, finding myself unable to breath with the added pressure. “Your accent is very familiar, and then you addressed me in your language, so I can only assume that you know me.”

“I been tracking your every movement for eight long years,” I grunted from the corner of my mouth.

“And all that time I’ve never seen you.”

“You’re a hard one to track.”

“Sansa,” he said in a chilling voice. “Finish her off, will you?”

“She’s my sister!”

“And your dying,” he reminded her. “You need all the strength you can get.”

“I’m tired of-”

“Living?” he interjected. “If so, your better off taking this knife here and ending it once and for all.”

“Why do you speak that way?”

“Because this is _our_ way,” he reasoned with half closed lids. “I know its hard to understand, but in order for you to live someone must die.”

“What if I want her to be like me?”

“You want to condemn your sister to this life of misery as well?”

“Why not?”

 I rolled over to my chest and wrestled the second gun out of my pocket. It was the last one left for me to use on all three of them, if I had too.

“Because I have obviously made you _miserable,_ ” the man grunted, as he walked towards her; quite forgetting me thankfully, which gave me enough time to point the weapon in one of their directions. “As you have so often said.”

“I do complain, but in the end, I wouldn’t change it for the world,” she answered him in truth, as she held her dying sister in her arms. “But I wish I met you in another life… one not as horrid as this.”

“One where I am not such a frightful creature,” he joked with his back fully to me. “In a world better than this one.”

“A world more black and white,” she rejoined. “Where there is life and death, and nothing after that.”

“But our world is not so bad,” he assured her, as he stood directly in front of her now. “I will make sure of it.”

Sansa looked down at the slow awakening Arya, and I realized in those brief few minutes she had somehow become one of them. Seeing bloodshot eyes coming out Arya’s face was enough for me to fire at will, and then I tilted the gun to fire at Sansa as well. I heard an angry cry, and then a gun wrenched from my bloody hands. I breathed for half a second before the man dragged me by the legs and out of the candlelight for good.

* * *

I awoke with the blood rushing to my head and found myself hanging upside down in the butcher room I had passed through earlier. The room was deathly silent, and the more I looked around I realized it was still the cover of night. I coughed into the darkness, searching around for the means to escape.

A few rats scuttled underneath me, eyeing me with their beady eyes as if they too wanted a drop of my blood too. _I must have killed them both,_ I deliberated, but with my unsteady hand and my half-consciousness it was so hard to tell. But I’m alive, so that says something.

A door closed, leaving an echo around this small in-closed room and I instantly knew that he was here. Heavy footsteps pounded behind me, and then I heard a low groan before this sorrowful look man bent down on one knee to look at me at eye-level. He wore an open button-down dress shirt drenched in blood with black pants and boots covered up in blood. “I did warn you there are worse things than death.”

I pursed my lips, realizing how bloodshot his eyes were in the darkness. “You know,” he uttered in a low tone of voice. “If it was any other bullet she would have lived, but you _had_ to use a silver one. Perfect aim too, right in the heart.” He made a face where his cheeks puffed out for a moment, clearly trying to hold back the anger that was burning inside of him. “You killed her sister too.”

I licked at my dry lips, feeling the weight of the blood rushing to my head with every passing moment. “I just buried my wife,” he said in an unsettling tone of voice. “The only one that truly mattered to me.”

I turned my gaze away, wanting to evade those crimson red eyes that eagerly searched my own.

“I’m not even going to offer you life or death, no, I want you to have something far worse.” He rose himself to his feet and untied my hands that were currently knotted behind my back. “I want you to feel the _pain_ that I will have for the rest of my life.”

“I can end it,” I muttered, as he continued to untie the knots. “End your pain.”

“Why would I do that? No, the only thing I live for now is _revenge._ ” He untied my arms and let them fall to the floor. I quickly pressed the palms of my hand to the ground for a means to escape as he walked away, and when the door opened for him to go to another room, I tried to bend myself forward to untie my legs as well. “You really think you could escape?” he asked with a faltering voice, and when I looked up, I saw a broad machete in his right hand. “No, this is just the beginning,” he uttered in a maniacal tone of voice, before he made sure to lock the door behind him.

* * *

It was some part of the day when I woke up, the streams of light had awoken me along with the sudden pain. I looked down to see the nightmare was still real; the pool of blood drenching my entire jacket confirmed that I would never shoot a gun again. Littlefinger made sure of it, as he chopped off each of my fingers one by one. There was nothing left now, but I still feared what he would take off next.

Daybreak meant he had no choice but to sleep, which meant it was my only means of escape. I looked down to see I was tied up to a chair, and the great rods of robe proved it would be a struggle.

Hours past and I could find no way to escape this horror, and the parchment of my throat proved the loss of blood and dehydration was taking his toll. Littlefinger was right, there are things out there that are worse than death. A part of me wished I never stepped foot into this house, or that I let my feelings for Arya Stark get in the way for my retribution. It was supposed to be Littlefinger dead, not Sansa or Arya, but the man responsible for the death of my family and friends. _And now, I can’t find a way out of here,_ I fretted, and hoped to god that Bran or Mormont was stupid enough to go wandering into this house to save me. _That’s if they even have the stomach to make it past the front door._

I winced in pain suddenly, and when I tilted my neck I realized at some point or other he bit into my neck. My blood was poisoned with his own, I would become just like him- neither living or dead, but a haunted shadow of my own.  

_I would have preferred death,_ I thought, as I tried again to wriggle my blood-soaked arm out of the ties of the knot. It was useless, all so useless to even try to escape this mad man. _I belong to him now,_ I realized, and that was worse than the pitiful things that were once my hands.

* * *

Water drenched my face suddenly, and I awoke for what felt like deep sleep. Another bucket was poured over my head and I coughed and sputtered until it all dripped down my shoulders and lap. “You’re awake,” he observed drearily.

“Have you come to torture me more?”

“I’ve come to talk,” he assured me, before he dragged a chair in front of my own. He pouted at the sight of me, glaring at me with sad blue eyes that nearly shattered me in two. “I want to know why you came here.”

“To kill you.”

“Why?”

“I know who you are, and where you came from. I know how it all came about, and that- that it was my sister who did it,” I stuttered out with some discomfort. “I swore an oath to kill you after I drove a stake through her heart, and I hoped to fulfill that oath one day.”

“Kind of hard with no fingers,” he observed without blinking.

“I will find a way.”

“Should I take off your legs too?” he asked and pointed at my boots that were still dripping with my own blood. “Or something else?”

“I would like the rest of my body intact.”

“I’d like my life back as well, but we don’t always get what we want.”

“I am sorry about your wife.”

“Sansa was my life,” he uttered in a clear voice. “She made this insufferable life, somehow pleasurable for me. I will never find the likes of her...” the last of his words got caught in his throat, and he turned his head sharply to hide the water quickly emerging in the corner of his eyes.

“It is better this way.”

“You say your sorry, but then you claim it to be better… better _what?_ That she should die by your hands?”

“That she escaped that godless life.”

“It wasn’t your choice for her to escape it!” He yelled out, after he suddenly took to his feet. “It wasn’t mine either. But you took it from her, you see?”

“Like the hundreds of lives you have taken for the past eight years.”

“You will know what it is like to hunger for human blood soon enough,” he told me. “A few more hours and you will find your entire body shaking. Craving it, desiring it, longing for hot red blood to touch your lips. You’ll never taste it, and that fact alone will drive you mad.”

“Like you?”

“I can have blood whenever I want. In another hour I can be feasting on it, and I’ll do it in front of you. I’ll let you watch the whole thing and then throw their dead carcases at your feet.”

“Your insane,” I grumbled through half closed lips.

“And so, will you be. I was kind to Sansa! I gave her everything she ever wanted, made them half dead before she finished them. As for you, Jaqen, you’ll get _nothing._ ”

“I want nothing.”

“That is what all Vampires say at first, and those who commit to it will most certainly die.”

“Then I will die!”

“No, I could never let you die, not while I still live.”

“It will never bring her back.”

“I have a thousand lifetimes to live, Jaqen, you never know. Someone might come up with something.”

I grunted at him, as he lifted his chair off the ground and dragged it across the floor to the other side of the room. “I saved her soul,” I yelled out to him when he was nearly out of the room.

“Another word from you… and I’ll cut out your tongue.”

I eyed him with vengeance but kept my tongue firmly in my mouth. I never said a word, so he quietly left me to my own musings.

Littlefinger was true to his word; he brought a young boy blinded folded and feasted on him in front of me. It was a terrible sight to behold, those blood red eyes eyeing the small four-year-old boy with pleasure. No one should see these horrors of the night, of the life that a Vampire was forced to live. The boy screamed into the man’s chest, but not even his cries could stop this man from forcing his top set of teeth deeper into the boy’s neck. He kept his word, tossing the dead boy in front of me before he left the room for good. It was a cold night, I remembered, and the pain in my hands kept me awake for most of it.

It was late into the night when the thing I dreaded the most awakened me. I let my tongue glide over the top set of teeth to notice there was a slight change, a jagged shark-like tooth had emerged in the middle of the night. Worst of all, I was craving something new- I could smell it in the air… my own blood, and the remnants of the boy that laid before my very feet.

Littlefinger laughed full-heartedly at me in the morning, spotting the way my hair stuck out on all ends as I laid there flat on the ground, while still be tied up to the chair. “What possessed you to do that, I wonder,” he mockingly gibed. He knelt one knee on the floor and pushed my shoulders back to get a good look at me. “You’re not close enough to the boy.” I grunted at him in reply and closed the lids of my eyes wearily. “You tried to knock the chair down right in front of him, eh?” He pushed my chair closer to the child, until my face was nearly pressed against the cold dead corpse. “Its all gone, I’m afraid.”

I whimpered into the air and shut my eyes hatefully. _How did I become this way,_ I fretted, _and felt just like my long lost sister._

“But you’re not truly mad enough for his blood yet,” Littlefinger piped up. He raised my chair off the ground and pulled out an apple from his pocket. “I suppose I should feed you from time to time,” he taunted, and pulled out a small knife from his vest pocket. “Seeing your not fully a Vampire yet. The taste of blood will seal your fate.”

“Then I will not taste it.”

“Sansa said that once too.” He sliced the apple in the palm of his hands, as he continued: “I took a long walk last night across the moors. It felt so lonely. You know, the sea helps to calm me down, but I thought of wringing your neck on that noose over there more than once last night. It wouldn’t be fun though.”

“Not for your sick mind.”

“No, indeed.” He sliced an apple thin enough to jab into my mouth and then ordered me to eat it. “She never liked this place. Thought it was too dark and shabby looking. I suppose she was right, but a place like this felt like home. She grew into it, of course, and then it really started feeling like one.”

“I don’t regret my decision to-”

“- quiet now,” he ordered, and then stuffed another apple into my mouth. “I feel like you’ve never been in love.” He paused to watch my neutral expression and made the quiet assumption for himself. “In your young life you never truly found anyone?” He noted how long I took to chew the apple and found the well-timed silence enough of an answer. “I was never in love. Sansa changed all that. I remember the first time I set eyes on her in the London garden,” he murmured with half a smile on his face. “I had jewels in my pocket, a business transaction, but I threw one hundred pounds away to give this beautiful young girl ebony black jewels stolen from an African Prince; smuggled overseas to be delivered to me personally. There I was, like a lost man, giving to her without ever knowing her name. I would have given her more if I could, the very coat off my back.”

“I already know you love her very much.”

“What do you know?” he asked with scorn. “If it wasn’t for me having to go to that dreaded coffin I might… it doesn’t matter.” He tossed the rest of the apples into my lap, knowing I would find some way or another to eat them if I put my mind to it. “What will it take for you to understand my loss?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.”

“I lost someone I cared about too,” I reassured him, and daringly looked into his eyes until he got my meaning.

“No,” he breathed. “There is a difference between caring about someone and _loving_ them.” He shook his head at me in disappointment before he turned to leave me with those dreary thoughts for the rest of the day.

* * *

I was left breathless as I caught sight of the icy white sea, crashing about the crags in a mad frenzy. Littlefinger had a rope tied around my neck, dragging me across the cliff side for some unknown reason. My arms were tied behind my back, so I had to make sure I made every effort to walk on a a flat plane, lest I fall head first.

The man before me was draped in his typical black cloak with a newsboy cap covering his head, a dark navy-blue scarf with some elaborate tweed pattern covering his neck. _Even in grief he dresses well,_ I contemplated, before I turned my gaze back to the sea. “This was her favourite spot!” he yelled into the wind. “She said it calmed her,” he added in a strong Irish brogue. “She never told me why.”

I looked out at the distant horizon, staring at the steel-grey sky overhead. The wind blew hard against my chest, making me squint in the wind that blew head-on without a moment of restraint. “Behind me is the window you shot at,” Littlefinger noted. “Creates an awful draft! I have to find someone to fix it.”

“Will you kill them after?”

“No, maybe I’ll let you do.”

“I won’t kill him.”

“Lock the both of you in a room together, and will see,” he gibed with a menacing grin.

“Is that what you did with Sansa?”

“Hers was done on her own accord! I could never force her to do anything. A detective was her first, apparently, he angered her. I do love it when she’s angry.” He scratched the back of his shoulder tiredly, as he continued to stare out into the sea. “Varys was his name.”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“No, doubt he told Ned Stark about our wear-abouts.”

“He was of some help.”

“And you gladly joined along, hoping to point that silver bullet at my heart, eh?” I bit down at my lip harshly and was surprised when it started to bleed out blood. “Careful with those teeth,” he mimicked, while opening his mouth to show his own. “They’re deadly.”

A rolling carriage was heard off in the distance, and Littlefinger pulled on the noose around my neck to propel me further. I was half-dragged to the front of the house, and under the moonlight I could see an open carriage with only two people sitting at the back. “Lord Baelish,” a man said at the front of the carriage and tipped his broad hat at him. “We found some.”

“Perfect, bring them inside.”

There was two addling old women, who looked like they belonged in poor houses in the streets of London. They looked pleased at the prospect of the house, so much so that the two women chattered among themselves happily. They were so consumed with the ancient architecture of the castle that they didn’t notice me standing off to the side with a noose around my neck and my arms strapped behind my back. _All the better for me._ “Run!” I cried out and was instantly punished with a tug on my neck that sent me hurtling to the ground.

“Forgive him,” Littlefinger smoothly replied, as he stepped on the side of my neck in the darkness. “He’s a mad man! Always ragging about the strangest things. I am happy to have a new maid and cook. I am sure Mr. Petens will show you inside.”

Mr. Petens, as he was presumably called ushered the women into the grave old house. _They should have been told about Vampire rules,_ I wearily thought, _knowing the moment they stepped in they would never come out again._

“You thought that would work?” Littlefinger laughed, as he helped me up. “Because of your insolence I will let you choose one.”

“Never.”

“Normally, Petens has the spare, but I will let you try one before him… just this once.”

“I won’t.”

“You will,” he promised me, and stuck his hands underneath my arms pits to steady me back to my feet. “I promise you that.”

Once again, this demon of a man had me tasting my first ounce of blood. The little remains that were in the poor woman’s body after the master of the house had his fill. His eyes were red as he watched me, and I had a strange inkling that mine were the same. “You feel as I feel,” he swore to me. “But the pain, maybe that will come to you someday.”

“Like the pain of losing your wife?”

He nodded his head at me sadly, quite forgetting the treachery he was so apt to play a few minutes beforehand. “You will never understand that pain.” He took the grey old woman’s body off my lap and set it down at my feet. On one knee he rested himself till he was at eye level with me, and I noticed how the normal colour to his eyes resumed the longer he stared at the ground. “I had a dream about her last night. It was like she came to me, trying to make sure I was alright.” He licked his lips, tasting the blood that still stained his lower mouth wantonly. “I think she worries about me, wherever she is. Sansa knows I’m alone.”

I looked down at my feet guiltily, knowing I was the person that severed them apart. “I almost wished she haunted this place, like a ghost. Maybe then I could feel her presence… see her. I would never want to leave this place.”

“Do you want to?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because this was our home.” He outstretched his hand to see the stain marks across it, and let his fingers wipe around the silver and gold creases of his rings. “I made love to her upstairs. We walked along the moors together just after sunset, where there was this thin sheet of fog that often came upon us. We were the only two living creatures in the world. Then there was her favourite spot,” he rambled. “I showed you it this evening, the one by the sea. She would sit there for hours and just talk about anything to me. I miss that the most.”

I blinked my eyes at him sadly, finally feeling the full weight of heartbreak that this man carried. “I did you wrong and I’m sorry.”

“You finally get it.”

“I do.”

“I’m glad.”

“What now?”

“Your bound to me for life,” he muttered, as he raised himself to the floor. “Immortal partners. You are my servant, Jaqen, and you will do as I say.”

“That is kinder than the fate you gave me before.”

“Is it kindness to serve the devil?” he asked aloud. “We will see.”

“Its worse being married to one,” I gibed with ill humour, hating the control this man continually had over me.

“I was never the devil to her,” he quipped. “More like a fallen angel.”

“How very kind of her.”

“Sansa was always kind,” he relayed with feeling. “But if I speak of her again, I may very well kill you where you stand.” He sucked in his cheeks fiercely, as the shade of his eyes turned to a not so remorseful black. “I will leave you.”

“Will I be kept here forever?”

“For a thousand life times.”

“You are ever fond of a thousand, my Lord,” I bitterly said, since I hated to refer to Littlefinger with that farcical title.

“Because, maybe if I have a thousand lives to live, I might see her again,” he told me with a hopeful look, before he left me for good.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't feel anything right now. I guess you can say I am emotionally numb, but rest assure there is another chapter so there is a glimmer of hope for Petyr and Sansa's relationship, even if it is a small one at best.


	6. A Promise

**Epilogue**

The steam whistled from the front of the train, and I heard the loud gritting shrill of the brakes slamming down on the train tracks. We were slowing down, approaching the train station in the center of London. _My final stop._ I readjusted my newsboy hat, making sure it covered my visage well before I rose myself from my cot. A tired grunt escaped me as I pulled on my heavy winter cloak, letting my pale white hands shine through the dark sleeves before I rolled them down snugly against my wrists.

There was shouting at the front of the train; a series of calls to inform the passengers that we had finally arrived. I went to my window to push back the drapes, with the added bed sheets I used to block out the light. “Rain,” I breathed out with a sigh of relief, and was thankful London weather was ideally the same as Ireland.

I walked over to the door and plucked my long black umbrella out a long tube-like holder and let the hook rest comfortably over my forearm before I opened my cabin door. “In a single line,” one of the guards called out, and directed the traffic to form a neat orderly line. I kept my head down to shelter my eyes from the bright lamps overhead, even when I knew it would create some cause of attention. There were very few men onboard this train, and even fewer with a face as young and healthy as my own. “Alright, take your time!” the guard yelled angrily at us, noticing how quick the passengers were to onboard the train. It was queer really, so strange that when so many women and children were fleeing the city, it was these few brave women that were determined to enter the city once more. I kept my head down as I passed a guard, though I felt his heated gaze on me as I quietly passed him by. I received the same attention by the line of military draped men when I stepped off the train and let my well traveled boots hit the ground loudly.

There was a large portrait of King George VI in the main lobby of the train station, and I felt that same proud aristocratic fervour the United Kingdom held so many years before. _War only added fuel to the fire,_ I noted, as a row of military men with their tilted hats standing on guard all around the lobby and main entrance way. I tightened my hand on my brief case, hoping I was dressed in the traditional business attire to not be stopped and ultimately questioned. _And I know what will happen if they do…_

I was fortunate enough to pass the luggage department, I made it my business to travel light. It was also my business to travel alone- unattended and unbothered by anybody but myself. I looked down at my watch, pleased to see everything was falling into place. There was not a hitch on my journey, and I felt content enough to let out a small sigh of relief before I stepped over the threshold of the old brick building and into the rain. My umbrella instantly popped open, but it wasn’t for the rain that I shielded my face. I looked around the bustling city under my newsboy cap and noted the stark change from many, many years ago. The cobbled ground was crumbled in at some points, similar to the severely destroyed buildings off in the distance. From where I stood on this hill, this sort of high point of the city I can see the great expansiveness of the destruction the German bombers left. I thought it fitting that the rain should pelt down on this granite city, adding to the rumble of the streets and the loud honking of automobiles hustling their way through the narrow alleyways. _How very changed,_ I thought, and pursed my lips as I took in this miserable sight. _And the war is far from over…_

“Newspaper, sir?” I shuffled my feet and turned around to see a young boy, a mere child holding up a rolled-up newspaper in his hand.

“How much?”

“Five pence.”

“So, cheap?”

He shrugged his small shoulders at me, so I dug deep into my pocket to offer him more than he demanded. “Get yourself something to eat, huh.”

The boy pocketed the change with a smile, and quickly scampered off with an arm full of unsold newspapers in hand. I drove the new purchase into my leather briefcase, before I sauntered down the slight descent that would take me deeper into the city. The rain was soon accompanied with snow, which left a slippery slush across the cobbled pathway that I leisurely walked across. It was so strange to see life, a range of vibrant colour and sounds that woke me from my long slumber on the Emerald Island. _How time has passed,_ I deliberated, and almost felt like I was my normal self again. No, not the young boy that traveled the snowy alps of Europe alone, maybe even before that.

I smelt something suddenly and stopped in my tracks, sniffling sharply before I jerked my head to the right. _A butcher shop,_ I realized, as I took note of the long black lines indented into the wood on top of the small shop. My hand instantly tightened around the bindings of my briefcase, and I felt a strong pulsation at the side of my neck as an unquenchable urge came over me. “Not now,” I breathed to my self, and noticed how even my chest heaved at the sight of it. I could almost hear the blood dripping on the floor, the slow gush of red water spreading across the tiled surface where more than a dozen cattle and wild boars hung by a metal rod above the ceiling. A flash of Jaqen hanging from the very same hook with a noose around his neck flashed across my mind, and I couldn’t help but smile. I sharply turned my head away and forced my feet to keep on walking, knowing I would be late for my first meeting of the day.

My first stop was a whorehouse, where unfortunately business has sunk at a tremendous pace ever since the war began. I was here to sign the papers to sell the place and knew it would be a very long time till I would see the same hoard of men entering a brothel anytime soon. “They are all at war,” I grumbled to the lawyer who watched me sign away the last of the papers. “If only I could send the whores over there too.”

The three taverns I owned had to be conducted with the same grievous experiences; a short-term lease for one and two unsatisfying offers to purchase the other two taverns by a few grey old English men. _If only they knew they were shaking hands with the devil,_ I thought, as they shook my hand goodbye. _How close they are too hell with every second I hold their hot beating hand; I could almost hear their pulsing heart in the back of my hand, those short, laboured breaths as they weakly hobbled away. How very easy it is to…_

“I never thought I’d see your face,” one of my store owners mockingly gibed. “Since its been two fucking years since it blew up.”

“Will that cover it?” I grudgingly asked, as I held out a cheque in front of him with a handsome fee. “Or should I just leave this place in this shitty state of crumbling?”

“It will cover it,” he assured me, as he examined the check under the yellow candlelight. “You really want to build this place up, don’t you?”

“It was one of my successful investments,” I drawled out with an air of indifference.

“It was smart,” he laughed. “High end hotel for all your fancy guests, while smuggling them booze, smokes and drugs at their own disposal.”

“Don’t forget the whores,” I said from the corner of my lip. “This sum should cover all of it.”

“Just the reconstruction?”

“Aye, and when it comes down to paying for the hiring you know where to contact me.”

“Yeah,” he replied, as he rubbed his finger and thumb around the corner of his open mouth. “What’s a _Lord_ got to do with investing in something like this?”

“A very bored one,” I quipped. _And lonely._ I rose myself to my feet tiredly, knowing walking about in broad daylight for so long was finally taking its toll. _I need rest._

“Odd that I’ve been working for you for all this time, and this is the first time we met.”

“I rarely ever come to London,” I lied, knowing it had been more than a few centuries since I stepped foot on this soil.

“It’s a good thing you got people working for,” he joked, as he patted his sandy grey vest that fit well against his broad chest. “Whole chain of command.”

“Yes.”

“None of them are Irish,” he observed, with a strong look of curiosity. He smoothed his hand over his barely buzzed head that shined a startling shade of grey under the candlelight. “There sort of…”

I raised my chin at him higher, letting my icy blue eyes stare him down till he swallowed loudly in the empty back room.

“They do their job well,” he feebly excused himself, and offered a nervous sort of bow before he walked out the door behind him. I felt the side of my face flinch, sensing it was almost feeding time. I ground my teeth knowing it was nearing darkness, and soon even my own common sense would have no control over such carnal desire. I closed my eyes wearily, trying to hold it in for a few more hours before I let my eyes open with a strong-willed determination to not give in- at least not yet.

The same store owner, Mr. Conwell, looked more himself once he stood behind the high-countertop of the liquor store that was under my possession. “Lord Baelish,” he called out, after he caught sight that I was walking out of the store. “Wait!” he entreated, and I let out a low sigh before I turned around to glare at him. _Why do we have to be alone,_ I wearily thought, and hoped he wouldn’t keep me in this establishment for much longer. “I was wondering where you are staying… in case I have to get in touch with you.”

“You get in touch with the same person as before,” I told him in a slightly dried voice.

“I know, but since you’re here.”

“I’m staying at a brothel tonight,” I told him bluntly. “I’ll have no time for business.”

“Oh,” he mouthed, once he understood my meaning. “Then, I wish you a goodnight.”

“Thank you,” I uttered through barely closed lips, since I could feel the fangs wanting to come out already.

“And… I should warn you about the dangers of these streets. You’re not in Ireland anymore, my Lord.”

I smirked at him most wickedly, as I bent my head slightly towards the ground. “No, I’m not.”

* * *

I returned to the first whorehouse I had visited earlier that day, finding some sense of relief as I felt the last of the sunlight had passed away. I had snuck into the office that once belonged to me, the same room I hadn’t step into since the morning I concluded that I would smuggle Sansa away. It looked the same as ever; not a stich of cloth, nor an item moved that was never strategically set in place from me so very long ago. It was a sham of a time capsule, a mockery to think that time could somehow stand still. “Oh, the irony,” I muttered, as I drew my fingertips across the perfectly dusted table. “I have half a mind not to sell you off,” I voiced aloud, as I let my eyes lazily wander around the darkened room.

I heard footsteps coming up the main staircase and decided to confront the real matter at hand. “Welton,” I yelled out, after I opened the door a crack and peaked my head through. “Am I right?”

“Lord Baelish?” he stuttered, with a large bronze coloured lamp in hand. “You are still here?”

“I had business to attend too.” I propped the door open more to show half of my slender figure. “I just came back.”

“I see,” the business account mumbled. “It is almost office hours,” he noted, as he looked behind him where he could already hear the men entering the downstairs lobby. “Is there anything you need from me?”

“Yes, I do actually.”

“Of, course,” he quickly answered with a look of nerves. I wondered if he could sense what I truly wanted, or if my cold blue eyes gave it away. “Anything you require is yours?”

“You have any red heads employed here?”

“A few.”

“Tall?”

“Yes.”

“How about…” I scratched the bottom of my goatee, as I second guessed everything. “... blue eyes?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Ah,” I painfully replied, and found my body weight propping the door open further. “And why would you?”

“Is it for yourself?” he asked meekly, while he clung to his booklet tighter. “Or a client?”

“Welton?”

“Yes,” he nearly breathed, and I could have sworn I heard his heart ramming out of his chest from only a few feet away.

“Welton,” I cooed, and found the corner of my lip smiling as I let my eyes wander down to the side of his neck. “Who do you answer too?”

“You, my Lord.”

“Then bring the girl here. That is all.”

“Which one?”

“Whoever is prettiest,” I demanded, before I shut the door in front of me. My trembling hands stroked my hair feverishly, feeling my limps aching with desire already. “Oh, Sansa,” I moaned, as I leaned forward on the wooden desk with my forehead pressed against the wood. “Is this why you had to leave me?” I hissed into the cold, dark room.

I saw a flash of an apple tree; a bright sunlit day where I was draped in all black with my servant, Jaqen, holding a large umbrella over himself and I. We sat down on the lush grass in front of a smouldering fire, waiting in silence for the elderly old woman to speak. She stared into the fire long and hard, and then closed her eyes as if she went into some form of deep mediation. I clutched the bronze coin I picked from Arya’s dead body, knowing it was the only thing that let me cross the small gypsy camp to speak to the dying witch. I remembered Jaqen’s hand trembled with anxiety, fearing the safety of his people- claiming they were the same blood as him even when he was so far from home. I would keep my end of the bargain, if the old lady kept hers. I came to this isolated coastline for one very specific reason, and that was to speak to my dead wife. “She says the same thing over and over again,” the old woman croaked, as she sat still draped in a series of quilted sheets over her shaking bones. “She says: ‘I walk with you. I will be with you soon.’”

 _When?_ The crack of the door broke my deep reverie, and I pressed the palm of my hands across the desk steadily to push myself off the desk.

“Oh, you poor thing,” a soft feminine voice remarked, and I instantly felt hands on the sides of my shoulders that pressed right through my thick woolen coat. “I am here to cheer you up.”

I looked down at the hand, it wasn’t the same as Sansa’s; so much smaller and daintier than the women I longed to hold. I pressed my hand over it anyways, feeling the heat from her hand that was instantly awakening some other part of beast inside of me.

“Let me help you relax,” she purred, and used her other hand to rub the top of my shoulders soothingly.

“I’m fine,” I chocked, finding the battle between man and beast quickly dwindling.

“Oh, your Irish?” she said with surprise. She let her hand slide upwards and glide across the side of my neck, and I felt my body stiffen with the impact. “Still tense,” she observed, and laid a soft kiss on the back of my neck. I hitched my breath, realizing why I never let a woman get close to me. “Relax,” she pleaded, and I looked down my shoulder to see I had a death grip over her hand. “Please,” she tried in a seductive voice, but it quickly failed. I let go of her hand instantly and dropped it down on the table with my knuckles glaring a frigid white.

“You should leave,” I warned in a dangerously raspy voice.

“But you haven’t even seen my face,” she taunted, and I saw a shadow of her dressing gown drop in the candlelight in front of me. There she was naked as day, and I knew it wasn’t exactly her body I wanted at that moment. “Or touched me,” she continued, as she wrapped her hand around my mid-section and pressed herself on me from behind. “Tasted me.”

I growled low, an animalistic sound that made her suddenly freeze behind me. “Go,” I hushed, as I found my shoulder rolling backwards unconsciously. _Before its too late…_

“At least look at me,” she reasoned, and I slowly raised myself to my feet with her arm tightly wrapped around me. “I’ve heard all about you,” she purred into my ear. Her hair fell into my view, a faint strawberry red that lacked the luster my heart was truly craving. “Such an elusive man,” she chided, once I finally stood up with my back fully straightened. “Full of mystery and intrigue.”

I tightened my jaw, after I decided to grant this woman her sole wish. _So be it,_ I thought, as untightened her hold around me to take a good look at her. Disappointment rang through my icy blue veins, and I felt as cold as ever looking at someone so different from the perfect vision I wanted to see.

“I’ve seen that look before,” she hushed, with her lips barely hovering mine. “You’re not _her,_ ” she whispered, as she let her fingers rub over the side of my silvery grey temples. “And now you want to back out, am I right?”

I stood perfectly still, knowing a single move may inevitably lead to her last.

“I could be her,” she promised me, as she laid the palms of her hand over the side of my face. “If you just close your eyes.”

I was tempted to open my mouth to reply, but I knew what she would see if I opened them.

“Let me be her,” she pleaded, as she drew her face closer to my own. I took a hard look at those nearly indistinguishable dark brown eyes, seeing a shadowy reflection of myself. There was a hint of fear betrayed in her eyes, probably realizing I had not blinked a single moment since our eyes had met. She covered her face quickly with the side of my cheek, pressing it tightly while she clung her arms around the back of my neck. “Your more heartbroken than I expected,” she whispered with a faltering voice. “Who was she?”

_My wife._

I closed my eyes as I let my hands creep around her own small form. _Try to believe it,_ I desperately thought, _believe that its true._

“Lay with me,” the other woman spoke aloud, as she untangled herself out of my arms. She looked timid as she reached for my hand, probably sensing something was wrong by the look I was giving her. “Your hands are cold,” she complained, as she pressed her hand firmly in my own to lead me to the couch. “I can keep you warm.”

_No._

She stood there fully naked as she plucked the hat from my head, taunting me for a moment as she swung it in front of my face. “Shall I undress you, my Lord?” I looked down at her breasts, but found my eyes wandering upwards till I saw the thin vein pulsating back and forth at the side of her throat. I slowly raised my hands, seeing the bones pierce out of my awfully white skin and then watched it graze over her deep white throat. The incense from her hair wafted towards me, the scent of roses and white spring flowers caught my attention; I cleared my throat deeply and she took that as a sign to continue her little game. The whore unbuttoned my shirt slowly, letting her eyes linger on me for fear or perhaps bewitchment, but whatever it was, the young woman had trouble after the first three buttons.

I blinked slowly and looked down at her frail-like hands. “I can do it,” I said in a hoarse voice with barely opened lips and darted my eyes downwards to fixate on the small buttons that never gave me trouble till now. I grew restless, however, and tore at the fabric suddenly which made the buttons fly all over the floor.

“Oh!” she exclaimed and laid a hand over her mouth with half excitement as I quickly devoured her with my eyes. “See, I knew you would come around,” she taunted, and let both of her hands smooth over my open chest with every effort not to touch the ghastly looking scar.

 _Sansa would have,_ I thought, as I closed my eyes to picture the image. _She would kiss it dearly like she did the first night,_ I remembered, and shut my eyes tighter to hold the vision for a bit longer.

“You won’t touch me?” a voice asked me, and I opened my eyes to look at the brown eyed girl pleading looks. “You are not pleased?” I batted my eyes at her, wishing I could have stayed in that blissful vision for a few minutes longer. “Oh, but you were thinking of her,” she realized, and pouted slightly. “I will be quiet,” the hired prostitute assured me, before she kissed me hard in the center of my chest just above my scar. “Picture her,” she suggested, as she let her hands unbuckle the belt to my trousers. “Imagine her in this room with you, my Lord,” she added, before she went on her knees to unzip my trousers.

The truth was so clearly shown once she got eye leveled to my crotch. I felt nothing for her, and she realized this when she couldn’t even distinguish a slight hardness. She glanced up, and I wondered if it was horror or surprise to see me staring at her with such a hard, resolute look. “No,” she squealed, after I grabbed the sides of her arm with a death grip to lift her to her feet. “Please,” she murmured, noticing my eyes had no interest for her naked form. “Whatever it is… please don’t,” she worriedly cried, with her hands desperately trying to push me off her.

I let go of her arm suddenly, and reached for her throat, squeezing it hard till she started to pant before my very eyes. “Please,” she mouthed, but all I could hear was a heavy thud in both of my ears. I could feel my chest heaving, barely distinguishing anything anymore. “Please,” a voice said louder, and I blinked to see her cheeks turning a hot pink. I should have felt something, but I was numb inside, so cold it didn’t even bother me to lift my left hand to cover her mouth. She would scream, I knew, like so many have done before. _I can’t let her do that,_ a dark voice said, and I tightened my hold around her throat till I could literally feel the aching pulsing of her vein against the palm of hand. “Don’t,” murmured into the almost silent room, and I jerked my head back to reveal the jagged fangs emerging from my mouth. The woman’s hands tried to swat at my face, and I forced my hand to go right past it, heading to the exact spot my entire body was demanding. _Take it,_ a shrill voice said at the back of my head, before I dug my teeth hard into the skin, feeling the folds of her skin at the back of my teeth and resting on the top of my mouth. Everything started to fade, but I felt my tongue lathering at the sweet blood, intoxicated by the taste and feel of this running liquid that ran to the back of my tongue and down my throat. There was some moaning from her, so I tightened my hold over her mouth to silence her completely. _Drink,_ a voice whispered, and I closed my eyes filled with deep delight as I took her fully. A flash of Sansa in my arms for the first time suddenly appeared, the night I made my mark on her neck to claim her as my own. A hand pressed down over the bridge of my nose, trying to reach my eyes, so I released my hand over the woman’s mouth to smack her arm down with the back of my hand. She grunted and screamed, so I took her into my mouth faster, breaking into her skin to seep more blood into the dark cavern of my mouth. She fell limp in my arms in the candlelight, and I spotted our shadows that made us almost look like lovers entangled in each other’s arms. _How far from it,_ I contemplated, before I dropped her body harshly to the floor.

I rubbed the back of my hand over my mouth, still feeling the blood drip down the seams of my lips. Jerking my head back I drank the rest of it down and exhaled with a heaving chest realizing I was done. A cold corpse laid before my feet; faint red hair splashed across the wooden floor with her soft, supple skin outstretched from one end of the couch to the other. _Even in death she doesn’t look like her,_ I thought, before I went over to my desk and found the familiar drawer that I used so many times before to cover up a murder. A towel was used to wipe my face and half drenched chest, and then I tossed some more on the ground around the body to soak up the remaining blood _. I will deal with the rest in the morning,_ I thought, and made sure I had everything before I walked out the door.

* * *

“Welton,” I shouted out with an agreeable voice, as I leaned against the outside of my office room door. It was morning, and I found I was still awake despite the sun already rising in the east.

“Morning, sir.” He noticed the lowering of my eyebrows as he walked towards me, and only then realized his error. “I mean… Lord Baelish.”

“I worked hard for that title, don’t forget,” I quipped, and leaned off the door slightly to look more at ease. “Busy night, I heard.”

“I hope the noises did not disturb you.”

“The opposite, actually.” I titled my head slightly, to direct my gaze to the closed door. “I was jealous.”

“Oh,” he simpered with a defeated look. “Yana was not good.”

“Terrible.”

“I am sorry. She is usually one of our more popular girls.”

“Is that so?” I positioned my body to be away from the door, so I could crack it open with ease. “You can see my own state of opinion,” I slyly replied, and pointed at the body sprawled out across the floor with blemished towels soiled with blood on top of her.

“Dear… god!” he chocked and covered his mouth with horror. “Did she? What?”

“Unsatisfactory, Welton. When I have another one tonight, I expect her to perform her duties.”

“Of course, Lord Baelish.”

“And if you breath a word of this to the police,” I threatened, while bringing my face closer to his own. “I know where you and your family live.”

“I won’t say a word,” he fretted, probably thinking of his mother and sister that resided with him. “I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.”

“Then burn the body,” I told him, since I found her unworthy to become anything like me. “And do it _quick._ ”

I left his side to head downstairs, seeking solace in the busy streets of London to find some sort of peace. I idly walked along the docks, taking shelter in the heavy fog across the icy channel that blew its way to the cobbled pathway. I thought the busy life of this urban area would help me forget her, or maybe take my mind off certain things- I was wrong. I found my way to the upper scale parts of London, noticing the immediate change of air as I escaped the industrial part of town and took in the fancy Georgian inspired architecture that lined up the quiet London streets. With hands deep in my pockets, I strolled down the quiet streets, ignoring the few officers that looked at me suspiciously as I passed their way. _They think I should be at war fighting the Germans,_ I took note, _but if I was encamped with them it would be more than the Germans they would have to worry about._ The newspaper I had purchased yesterday raved on about it, to the point that I felt sick to my stomach by the news of this never-ending. I had no business in this fight, however, not when I stood on so thin a line between life and death. _I am in hiding and I must stay that way,_ I thought, as I passed under a shade of the houses on one side of the street. The polished black fence was fast approaching my view, and I felt my steps feeling surer as I crossed the busy street and half ran towards it. _STARK,_ engraved in dark golden letters in front of the fence, the only marker that showed this land still belonged to them. I heard their house was convertor into a museum, a memento for the former Vice-President and much beloved Lord _. If only they knew I was the one who took his life,_ I smugly thought, until I remembered how it nearly shattered Sansa’s heart in two.

I grimaced at the fence and eyed the brick building one last time before I stormed away from it. _They can go to hell,_ I reminded myself, though it would probably lead them to the same fate as me. My low grumblings were soon silence, however, once I approached a park that brought a sunshine of memories I could hardly suppress. “Sansa,” I breathed into the air, and froze at the side of the familiar tree that we had met so many times before. “Sansa,” I breathed a little louder into the cold winter morning, and felt my entire face soften at the view. The tree was still the same, only a little older and grave looking from the last time I saw it. The grass maintained the familiar brown shade that was expected under these cold winter months, and the sky with its thin sheet of silvery grey made it feel like it was only yesterday since stood under that Willow tree. I reached deep into my pocket and fondled the ebony black jewels, those small water droplet like stones that fixed the moment Sansa and I would be together. “Oh, sweetling,” I hushed, as I took small steps towards this sacred area. “Happy Anniversary.”

I let myself slowly drop down to the floor with my back against the bark, just as we had done so many times before. “One hundred years,” I croaked. “Same day, and almost same time, but I’m here sweetling. I’m here… waiting for you.” I laid the back of my head against the tree, shutting my eyes as I felt it threatening with tears. “Waiting for you,” I breathlessly repeated, with my head tilted upwards towards the sky.

_But will she ever come?_

I sat under that tree for hours, spending every moment thinking about her while I watched the small angel-like flakes fall around me. I could almost feel her laying with me in the cold, with those sweet blue lines tracing every line in my face. Hear her voice off in the distance, like the distant howls of the wind that warned a change of weather. I pulled my hat down over my face as the snow came down faster, but once it became too much to bear, I brushed off the mounting flakes of snow and trudged my way away from the spot. _What am I even doing here,_ I deliberated, _and felt like a fool for coming._

 _I should have stayed where I was,_ I thought, _or killed myself like I planned on doing._

 _The world would have been glad to be rid of me,_ an angry voice complained at the back of my head, as I walked out of the regal gated park and headed for the commoner’s road. _A man who hunts on weak women and children._

 _Then, what gave me the strength to fight back when Jaqen attacked me,_ I wondered, and saw glimpses of his well-timed attack when I was almost asleep and caught off guard. _And he almost succeeded,_ I remembered, _if it hadn’t been for my treachery. He made an oath and he died trying, so it wasn’t exactly personal._

 _But my revenge was,_ I cunningly thought, as I saw flashes of him grasping at his throat as Jaqen hung by a long strand of rope. “I should have killed you long ago,” I threatened him, before I kicked away the chair his feet were planted on, and then watched him dangle in the air while gasping for breath.

_When did I become so violent?_

I shook my head wearily, as I crossed another street, uncertain of where I was heading in this bleaker part of town. The wind continually blew against my face, so I sneaked between a winding alleyway until I ended up on a small isolated street beside the sea. I took off my hat, noticing there was no wind tunnel here; only soft flakes of snow falling from the sky, unadulterated by the brisk howling wind from the frozen lake. The houses were angled perfectly to protect me from the wind, which made me let out a long sigh of relief. I looked left and right to find all the shops in this area were closed because it was Sunday, a Holy Day, and felt a bit sorry for myself to be standing out here alone. A few quiet moments passed, and I felt like the snowflakes seem to be falling slower, or maybe it simply felt as though time had suddenly stopped. I took some small steps forward until I stood in front of a store glass window, noticing the absence of my reflection as I stood directly in front of it. When I reached my hand forward to touch the frigid glass, I saw a movement behind me in the reflection. It felt like my heart stopped, a low thumping in both of my ears as I saw a shadowy blue figure move across the snow. My hand pressed itself firmly against the glass once more as I caught sight of a fiery shade of red.

_I walk with you…_

My head turned to look over my shoulder to see her with my own eyes; our timing was perfect, for she did the same.

_… I will be with you soon._

 


End file.
